The deceased was identified late Tuesday evening as 65-year-old Darren Duffel in a news release from Blair County coroner Ray Benton. The coroner’s office was able to identify Duffel by crossmatching a surgically implanted prosthesis with medical records.

Duffel lived in the third-floor apartment where the fire apparently started, according to city fire inspector Justin Smithmyer.

No one else was injured in the blaze, according to Smithmyer.

Most residents of the 17 occupied apartments got out of the 200-foot-long, three-story, rectangular building before firefighters and police arrived after the 12:51 a.m. alarm, according to Smithmyer.

Most residents of the 17 occupied apartments in the complex on Burgoon Road and Sixth Avenue got out of the 200-foot-long, three-story, rectangular building before firefighters and police arrived. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

There were smoke detectors in all the units, pull alarms in common areas and tenants knocking on doors to rouse other tenants, according to Smithmyer.

Firefighters and police helped rouse the remaining tenants, he said.

Nobody needed to be carried out, according to Smithmyer.

The first firefighters arrived within about 30 seconds of the alarm, as the city’s Fire Station No. 4 is just across Burgoon Road from the complex, Smithmyer said.

That alarm also brought the remaining 11 on-duty firefighters from the other three stations, Smithmyer said.

The roof of the building was destroyed and the third floor was heavily damaged, according to city fire inspector Justin Smithmyer. Courtesy photo

A second alarm two minutes later brought nine more firefighters who had been off-duty and a third alarm 20 minutes after that brought about six more, all of the firefighters being from the city Fire Department, Smithmyer said.

As they began to fight the fire, they searched for occupants who might not have escaped, but it was not clear who might have been where in the building, Smithmyer said.

Smithmyer is “working through theories” toward a cause of the fire, and is “leaning” toward it not being suspicious, he said.

The fire department contacted the Red Cross, which set up at the nearby fire station to help the residents who escaped the blaze by providing hotel stays and gift cards, according to Smithmyer.

The Salvation Army, AMED and state police were also on scene, he said.

Segments of the building were separated by concrete block walls that extended to the roof, but they didn’t project above the roof like firewalls, which might have prevented the fire from traveling the length of the building along the roof, according to Smithmyer.

The building is one of three similar ones that comprise the Colonial Plaza apartment complex.

The complex is owned by L.S. Fiore Enterprises LLC, according to the Blair County Assessment Office.

Michael Fiore, part of the ownership group, said the group wasn’t going to comment on what happened at present.

The roof of the building was destroyed and the third floor was “very, very heavily damaged,” while the lower floors were damaged with smoke and water, Smithmyer said.

He’s not certain whether the structure will be rebuilt or razed and he couldn’t estimate the monetary loss, Smithmyer said.

The building is insured by Cincinnati Insurance, according to fire investigator Greg Agosti of Romualdi Davidson & Associates of Monroeville, a forensic engineering firm hired by Cincinnati as a consultant.

The firm will conduct an independent investigation to determine the cause of the fire, while evaluating what remains of the building.

Its findings can factor into the fate of the building and the ultimate monetary damage figure.

“(But) nothing is going to happen overnight,” Agosti said.

A resident who lives in one of the other buildings in the complex took pictures of the blaze and shared them with the Mirror.

Flames were shooting 30 feet in the air from the roof, the resident estimated.

“Oh, dear God,” she said, reprising her reaction to seeing the fire the night before.

She was thankful that it wasn’t windy, because if it had been, the fire could have spread to the nearby woods, she said.