Monday afternoon at approximately 4:00pm, Guymon Firefighters responded to a 911 report of an apartment fire at Apache Trace Apartment complex at 1301 E. Hwy 3. Firefighters quickly arrived to find smoke coming from 2 apartments on the east side of H-building. Shortly thereafter, firefighters found an additional 2 more apartments that had smoke and fire showing on the west side of the same building. Guymon Firefighters, Guymon Police Officers, Texas County Sheriff Deputies, with aid from Tri-County Electric service personnel immediately started to evacuate people and pets from each apartment in the entire building with very little time to spare.
“With the intense winds and the fire growing larger, this quickly became a 3rd alarm fire bringing Firefighters and units from Goodwell and Hooker”, said Fire Chief Grant Wadley. At the height of the fire, residence in other nearby apartment buildings were evacuated for safety and Firefighters began efforts to stop the fire from spreading to those other buildings. The entire H-building is a complete loss which had a total of 16 individual apartments. Estimated 40 people are displaced at this time due to the fire. Guymon Firefighters remained on scene for over 12 hours extinguishing hot areas and keeping residents’ awayfrom the now collapsed structure.
Cause of the fire is under investigation by the Guymon Fire Marshal Office. 2 citizens that had been in the apartments were treated and released for smoke inhalation at the scene by Guymon Fire Paramedics. No other injuries were reported. Early damage estimations are over $1 million. Texas County Emergency Management and American Red Cross were on scene assisting with the displaced residence.
In June 1998, another large fire at the same complex caused 8 entire apartment buildings with 128 individual apartments to completely burn down. “The complex was still under construction at that time, and occupants were not living in the apartments yet”, Chief Wadley stated.
