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No OU students injured in Norman apartment complex fire
by   |  August 5, 2011  |  

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A Norman firefighter fights a dying flame at the Commons apartments Friday in Norman. Police were dispatched to the scene at 3:45 p.m. to fight a blaze that damaged several apartment buildings. (Carmen Forman/The Daily)

No OU students have been injured in the the flames that engulfed several buildings Friday at the Commons on Oak Tree student apartment complex, a Norman Regional Hospital spokeswoman said.

Norman Regional Hospital paramedics have been treating firefighters on the scene for heat exhaustion since the flames began before 4 p.m. at the Commons student apartments, 1111 Oak Tree Ave. near Highway 9 in Norman.

The National Weather Service reported temperatures at 109 degrees at 3:35 p.m. Friday, which contributed to the firefighters’ heat exhaustion.

The call reporting the fire came in at 3:45 p.m., a Norman Police dispatcher said. Police officers, fire engines then arrived at the scene between 3:45 and 4 p.m.

Three ambulances with nine paramedics also were dispatched at this time, Norman Regional Hospital spokeswoman Kelly Wells. Fire engines from Moore Fire Department arrived later at 4:38 p.m. for backup, as police told bystanders not to re-enter any of the buildings and stay behind police barriers of the complex.

Norman police arrested at least two people for interfering with fighting the fire.

Aissata Cisse, environmental engineering graduate, lived in one of the buildings where fire was reported on the roof.

Cisse said firefighters came into the building and knocked on her friends’ door, telling her friends to leave the apartment immediately.

Cisse, an international student from the African Republic of Mali, did not have time to return to her own apartment to grab her passport or other important documents.

“They had already evacuated everybody from my building so I couldn’t get in,” she said.

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but the firefighters have contained the flames as of 6:50 p.m.

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