KCMO firefighters combat more than 20 fires at vacant Olive Park Village apartment complex

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, Fire Department companies put out another fire Saturday morning at the vacant Olive Park Village Apartments complex.

KCFD Battalion Chief Riley Nolan said firefighters were dispatched to a reported fire around 1:09 a.m. in the 2300 block of East Ninth Street.

Crews found heavy fire coming from a three-story apartment building, and they were able to put the fire under control by 1:20 a.m. There were no injuries reported in the incident.

Chief Nolan confirmed to KSHB 41 News that this was at the vacant Olive Park Village Apartments.

There have been more than 20 fires at the complex this year.

KSHB 41 spoke to neighbors near the complex earlier this month, who said the repeated fires have become a familiar and frightening routine.

KCFD said crews have been injured at the location before. Chief Nolan told KSHB 41 earlier this month that responding to fires at the property puts firefighters at risk and a strain on the department.

"It's also a danger to us, not only to the neighborhood but also to firefighters," Nolan said on Aug. 2.

The complex became vacant in January after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ended its contract with property owner, Millennia, because of unlivable conditions at the complex.

Since then, neighbors and the city of Kansas City, Missouri, have been pushing to demolish the complex, though the process has been slowed by ongoing litigation.

At least one of the buildings has been demolished.

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