A kitchen fire was contained to a single room in an eighth-floor unit at The Regency apartments in downtown Oklahoma City around 1 p.m. Wednesday, sending one person to the hospital with severe burns and forcing an evacuation of the building near Northwest Fifth Street and North Hudson Avenue.
The Oklahoma City Fire Department was sent to the fire around 1 p.m., according to News 9. Firefighters said the blaze began in a kitchen on the eighth floor of the high-rise apartment complex before crews managed to keep it contained to a single room.
The person hurt in the fire was transported to a local hospital with severe burns, per the same report. Firefighters said the individual was conscious and breathing as they were taken away for treatment.
Evacuation Adds To Building's History Of Emergency Displacements
The fire prompted evacuations at the building, the station's report notes, though the exact number of residents forced out Wednesday has not been detailed. It is not the first time tenants at the address have had to leave in a hurry: a 2022 power outage at the building, then also referred to as The Regency, led to a large-scale evacuation after officials determined that a building without electricity posed a safety hazard, according to KFOR. That outage was traced to a leaking sewage line that damaged electrical equipment, and OG&E restored service to the building by 6:30 a.m. the following Monday, the outlet reported.
Eight years earlier, in November 2018, firefighters were called to the same complex, then identified as the Regency Towers Apartments in the 300 block of Northwest Fifth Street, after a fire alarm was activated around 8:40 a.m., according to KOCO. That fire started in a trash chute, and about 75 Oklahoma City firefighters responded, ultimately extinguishing the flames by running water down the chute from the top of the building to the basement.
