ROBBINSDALE, Minn — Firefighters in Robbinsdale spent a cold morning Tuesday battling a fire at an apartment complex that claimed a woman's life.
Robbinsdale Police Captain John Elder said officers and fire crews were dispatched to 4300 Robbins Landing just before 5:20 a.m. on reports of a fire. Upon arrival, they encountered heavy smoke billowing from a unit on the third floor that also filled the hallways of the apartment building.
Officers attempted to enter the burning unit but were turned back by what Elder called "a heavy wall of black smoke." They did not have oxygen equipment and were forced to wait for firefighters, who entered the apartment and pulled out the lone woman.
Despite lifesaving measures, the woman did not survive. The identity of the victim, along with the nature and cause of death, will be released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office in the coming days. Elder says this is the first fire-related death in Robbinsdale in 2024.
"My bedroom's all the way in the back and then I also have a fan and a noise machine. So it was pretty lucky that I heard it," said Amy Wood, who woke up on her birthday to the sound of banging. Officers were evacuating residents.
Wood fled her fourth floor apartment and said, "I didn't get scared until I went to the actual fire escape door and then I opened it and then the smoke came out. Then I got a little scared because I'm like, maybe I'm trapped."
The building is affordable housing for seniors and people with disabilities, according to the Robbins Landing's website. Elder said evacuating the building had its challenges due to the age of residents and mobility challenges many of them live with.
"I heard also that they had to carry some people out because some people were either in walkers or they weren't as mobile. So a lot of the fire people, they had to carry people out and we have about seven floors," Wood said.
Once safe from the building, residents were placed on Metro Transit buses to keep them warm.
The fire was confined to the single third-floor unit but a few apartments had water damage. One person was displaced but the apartment's management told KARE 11 that she is staying with family. Red Cross visited the apartment but said no one ended up needing their services.
The woman's identity has not been released yet and the cause of the fire is under investigation by the Minnesota State Fire Marshal's Office and the Robbinsdale Fire Department.