EAST MOLINE, Ill. — With smoke coming from a third floor apartment, firefighters in East Moline, along with others from Moline, Silvis and the Rock Island Arsenal, responded to Fox Pointe Apartments Saturday afternoon.
The call came in just after 4 p.m., coming from the maintenance department at the complex about an electrical problem, the fire department said.
When firefighters arrived, they saw smoke coming from the third floor.
"We had fire in the wall that had spread up into the attic area and ran across some voids between several apartments," said East Moline Fire Chief Rob DeFrance.
Later, crews saw flames coming from the roof, and firefighters quickly put out those visible flames.
Because the fire spread in between the walls, the fire was more challenging to fight, said DeFrance.
"It was really a tough fire for these guys to get to, very small scuttles into the attic area here," DeFrance said. "We had a fire wall, what we'll call a fire wall, but a partition wall and we ended up possibly having fire on both sides of that."
DeFrance added it was also challenging because firefighters could not see flames immediately when they arrived.
"You gotta see the fire to put the water on the fire so we've gotta do some labor to find the fire then open up the areas," DeFrance said.
That labor meant opening up the roof and walls.
"A lot of it is just axe work and pipe pole work and some demolition work really, to open up some walls to get to that fire," DeFrance said.
Chief DeFrance said four apartments had extensive damage. Firefighters still don't know the cause of the fire, but tell us no one was hurt.