Fire at senior living complex in Plainfield kills 1

PLAINFIELD — A tenant of a senior living complex died in a fire Friday morning.

The victim lived in a top-floor apartment of the three-story Mill Run Apartments at 230 Mill Run Drive.

Two others were taken to a hospital, but their conditions were not thought to be serious, Plainfield fire officials said.

Other residents fled the building into the rain after the fire was reported about 7:30 a.m. Fire Chief Brian Russell said the fire was contained to one apartment, but there was smoke damage throughout the third floor.

The fire department evacuated the second and third floors of the building, but within an hour, residents were allowed to enter the lobby of the senior living complex.

"We're here quite often. Occasionally there is a cooking fire, but it's been a long time since something like this got out of hand," Russell said.

The fire was extinguished, and the cause is under investigation.

"I didn't even know this was going on," said Judy Pearson, a longtime resident of the apartment building. "I would have just been still sleeping away if my daughter didn't wake me up."

Pearson said her daughters received a call earlier in the morning about a fire in the apartment complex. The pair live nearby and rushed over to check on their mom, who hadn't heard the firetrucks.

Pearson was surrounded by family on the porch of her first-floor apartment. She said everyone left the building at first, but she was allowed to go back inside.

Mill Run Apartments, a low-income senior living complex, is a Dominion Realty property. No one was in the complex's office at the time of the fire, and calls from The Indianapolis Star were not immediately returned.

This story originally appeared at Fox59.com.

Call Star reporter Olivia Lewis at (317) 444-6126. Follow her on Twitter: @TheWrittenPeace.