Kansas City firefighters battle 2-alarm blaze at Waldo church after preschool evacuated
Firefighters battled a blaze at a Waldo church in Kansas City late Monday morning.
Members of the Kansas City Fire Department responded to a fire at the Keystone United Methodist Church near the intersection of West 74th Street and Wornall Road where they found heavy smoke pouring from different parts of the building, said Jimmy Walker, an assistant fire chief with the Kansas City Fire Department.
When the blaze began, preschool was happening at the building connected to the church, said Walker, who estimated about 50 teachers and children were in the building at the time.
Everyone was evacuated by the time fire crews arrived, he said. No one was injured.
The fire originated in a section of roof that was under construction above the old second-floor gymnasium on the west side of the building, Walker said. The department will release the cause of the fire once an investigation is completed.
“It looked bad for a few minutes,” Walker said. “When we arrived, we had heavy, dark smoke showing from numerous areas.”
But he said firefighters worked quickly, and the fire was under control by noon.
The blaze caused significant damage to a section of the roof. There’s also water damage to the gymnasium and the classrooms and fellowship hall below it, Walker said.
The church, which has made its home in Waldo since 1908, is old and large, which made identifying the location of the fire more difficult, said Walker, who estimated between 75 and 100 firefighters were on the scene of the two-alarm fire.
Walker said had they needed to go on the defensive, the church likely would have been a total loss.
Instead, they were able to get inside and extinguish the fire quickly.
“It pays tribute to how hard our men and women of our fire department train; I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Walker said. “They did a great job today.”
He added that Monday’s blaze was a good example of how up-to-date fire codes can save lives. Because the school was compliant, they were able to quickly get the children out of the building and to a safe location before the fire got worse, Walker said.
