Lincoln Police have identified the man killed in an apartment house fire near 52nd and Leighton last Thursday afternoon as 73-year-old Douglas Kroese. LFR Public Information Officer MJ Lierman says the fire broke out just before 4:00 in an outside window well of a basement unit.
Lierman says the flames spread up the outside of the building and reached the soffits and attic. She says the fire consumed the building’s only stairwell exit, from ground level to the attic, leaving upper-floor residents with no way out.
Lierman says two people and a dog were rescued from the balcony as firefighters used ladders to bring them down. She says Kroese was found dead near the ground-level exit. Damage to the apartment building is estimated at $130,000 and $75,000 to contents. The cause of the fire is not yet known.