By Mark Wineka
Salisbury Post
LANDIS ó A downstairs kitchen fire at a two-story apartment house on West Rice Street injured three people and displaced several residents early Sunday evening.
Landis Battalion Chief David Sells said two men and a woman suffered second-degree burns as one of the men tried to carry a pan or pot on fire out of one of the downstairs apartments.
The man burned his hand. When he tripped and fell, grease splattered and burned the woman on the arm and the other man on a leg.
The trio were transported to Carolinas Medical Center-NorthEast in Concord. Their names were not available Sunday night.
Sells said damage to the apartment house at 215 W. Rice St. could have been a lot worse, given the structure’s balloon construction, but “everybody, including mutual aid, did a fantastic job saving it.”
A balloon construction means the wood-frame house has no fire stops in the walls, making it easy for fire to spread from a downstairs location to the upstairs and into the attic, Sells said.
Sells said firefighters “got a good knockdown” and prevented fire from reaching the upstairs.
The house has three apartments downstairs and two on the second floor.
Firefighters responded at 5:52 p.m. and reported it under control at 6:27 p.m.
The last Landis trucks did not leave the scene until 8:48 p.m.
“We wanted to make sure there was no fire extension,” Sells said.
Sells said he thought three people were displaced for the evening and receiving assistance from the American Red Cross.
The fire itself was contained to the one apartment’s kitchen, where the grease fire started on the stove.
There was heat damage throughout that apartment and smoke damage into the second floor.
Kannapolis, China Grove and Atwell fire departments assisted Landis.
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263 or mwineka@salisburypost.com.