Spencer Fire Update
Spencer, Iowa  5pm — (KICD) — Three fire departments remain at the scene of a fire that threatens half a block in Spencer’s downtown.
     Shortly before 5pm Fire Chief John Conyn told reporters he believes all occupants and their pets are accounted for.  Red Cross Director Jen Meyer told KICD she’s attempting to contact all of the residents to offer them lodging and emergency cash.
     The Spencer Fire Department was dispatched after noon on the report of a smoke smell downtown.  By 1 o’clock smoke could be observed pouring out of upstairs windows and building exhausts from structures located between 215 and 225 North Grand Avenue.    Conyn says crews extinguished several pockets of visible flames, but around 2pm holes were chopped in the ceiling so a fire or fires in the attic could be attached with the aerial unit to the structure’s East side on Grand Avenue.
     The Everly Fire Department was called in shortly after 2pm.  The Spirit Lake Fire Department arrived with its aerial truck around 3pm and set up on 3rd Street West, attacking the fire from the North.
     Don Hemphill owns four of the structures which house his law practice and three other businesses on the ground floor, and eight apartments on the second floor.  He’s being told it appears the fire started in the apartment located on the Northwest corner of the structure.
     Chief Conyn says there’s no speculation on how the fire started yet.