One person was found dead Thursday after a fire at a Midtown Anchorage condominium complex.
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Firefighters responded around 9:30 a.m. to Mount Vernon Commons, a 15-acre condominium community near West 36th Avenue and Arctic Boulevard. Thick columns of smoke were visible across the area. The fire destroyed one condo and spread to adjacent units before firefighters got it under control.
The Anchorage Fire Department later announced in a press release that one person was found dead in a unit of the complex. Police are handling the death investigation, the department said.
The fire’s cause and exact location remain under investigation, Anchorage Fire spokeswoman Megan Peters said in an interview late Thursday morning. First, firefighters were making sure the flames were out.
“They’re tearing out ceiling debris. They’re taking stuff out of the walls, trying to make sure that there’s no hot spots that are going to flare up,” she said.
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Peters said the firefighters also did what they could to save personal belongings.
Bonnie Maffei watched from nearby with her granddaughter as firefighters hosed down the building and smoke billowed. She said she had heard an unusual sound Thursday morning, went outside and saw the fire next door. The firefighters had managed to save some of the art on her walls before the roof caved in. Looking through them, she said, they were oil paintings by her mother.
“I’m overwhelmed because that’s the only thing that’s important to me — are the paintings,” she said.
Peters said she had not heard of anyone transported to the hospital with injuries and she did not know whether any pets had been impacted by the fire.
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