LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Last week, part of Interstate 64 in Louisville was closed for hours during the morning rush because of a fire in a vacant building under the expressway.
But that wasn't the first time fire crews were called to the building. Now, the Louisville Fire Department is working to prevent similar emergencies before they start.
The fire was reported around 4:50 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 27, at 16th Street and Northwestern Parkway in the city's Portland neighborhood. It shut down I-64 West because the flames coming from the building were so high.
It took nearly 50 firefighters to put out the blaze, and smoke could be seen for miles. But it was just one of dozens firefighters battle at vacant buildings in the city.
"There's usually an uptick, especially when we hit those winter months," said Louisville Fire Capt. Donovan Sims.
Over a six-month period at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, firefighters responded to 50 fires at vacant properties. That's an average of about eight per month. It's an issue that prompted Louisville Fire to take a look at the problem.
"Most people just see us in action, right, of putting the fire out. But our biggest job is to prevent those fires from happening," Sims said.
Last April and May, firefighters went around Louisville looking for vacant buildings, flagging them. They came across more than 630. Of those, 217 were considered "unsecured" and 27 were "high risk" due to a history of repeated fires.
Firefighters then reported those properties to the Fire Prevention Bureau and Metro Code Enforcement. The buildings were boarded up and some will eventually be demolished.
"The safety of our citizens, our structures, that's priority, life and property," said Sims. "We want to make sure we're preserving those, so if we're being proactive and going out and documenting these dangerous, vacant properties, (then) we know that they're dangerous as well."
In the six months after some properties were boarded up, Louisville Fire responded to 36 fires — a decrease of 28%. But Sims hopes that number goes down even more.
"It's forever ongoing, right, as we make numerous runs each day, we can canvas those runs," he said. "It can be something as simple as we were just out on a med call that was nearby a vacant structure that we saw was a dangerous location. It can be a med run or a fire-type incident inside that structure."
Sims said the public can help, too. If you see a building around town you think is dangerous, Sims said to report it to 311.
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