Five firefighters injured in K.C. fire

? Five firefighters were injured Friday morning, with two initially listed in critical condition, while battling a blaze at a 1920s building that once housed vaudeville productions and showings of silent films.

The firefighters were injured inside the two-story building about 10 a.m., Battalion Chief Joe Vitale said. All five were at area hospitals, with the other three listed in serious condition early Friday afternoon.

However, Vitale said one firefighter’s condition had improved enough that he might be discharged later in the day.

The worst of the injured had burns on about 30 percent of his body, Vitale said.

“They are going to be OK, but that’s their status,” Vitale said.

He said the firefighters were trying to locate the source of the fire when there was a flashover, which occurs when the contents of a room heat to their ignition point and simultaneously burst into flame.

The injured firefighters, whose names were not immediately released, were able to make it out of the building on their own.

After the flashover, all firefighters were ordered out of the two-story building. By noon, the roof of the building and the second floor collapsed. Strong winds were fueling the fire, leading to fears the building itself could fall.

The building houses Kennedy’s Bar & Grill, the French bistro Cafe Apanaire, a bridal shop and a clothing store. There were apartments on the second floor of the building.

Tracey Snell, a barista at Cafe Apanaire, said she and a co-worker, Rosalind Morris, began smelling smoke around 9:30 a.m., which they couldn’t understand because the oven was off.

Snell began walking down the street to see if other workers in the area were smelling smoke. As she passed Kennedy’s Bar & Grill, she heard the alarm going off. The building was locked, so she returned to the cafe and called 911. She then headed out to alert other workers in the area about the fire.

On her way back to the cafe, she noticed Kennedy’s Bar & Grill was filled with smoke and a window was cracked.

“That’s when I went inside the cafe, and it had started to smoke up thick enough that I started coughing,” she said. “I told (Morris), ‘We need to get out of here now.’ That’s when we left.”

Said Morris: “Next thing you knew, all hell broke loose.”

The pair lamented the loss of the building in a nearby bar. The burned building, which opened in 1924, included a playhouse that initially was known as the Westmoreland Theater. The playhouse became a movie house known as the Waldo Theater and later housed theater productions as the Waldo Astoria.

Firefighters appeared to have the fire under control by early Friday afternoon, but were still battling hotspots.

Fire officials were not immediately sure what started the fire or the full extent of the damage.

A co-owner of Kennedy’s told reporters that employees usually arrive after 10 a.m., so no one would have been in the bar when the fire broke out.