Apartment considered total loss after evening fire

<span>An apartment above Evansville Food Mart is considered a total loss after a Wednesday evening fire.</span>

<span>According to Evansville Fire Chief Darren Kempfer, firefighters were paged out to 507 Liberty St. around 8:45 p.m. to the report of a structure fire.</span>

<span>"The upstairs is probably a total loss," Kempfer told the Herald Tribune. "In the main store itself, there was a lot of water damage and a spot where the fire burned through the floor of the apartment."</span>

<span>No one was injured in the incident. Kempfer said the apartment's resident, Ronnie Rider, had gone out to eat and returned to discover the fire.</span>

<span>"It looked electrical to me," Kempfer said on the fire's cause.</span>

<span>After working all Wednesday night to clean up the mess, the resilient employees of the Food Mart had the store back open for business on Thursday morning.</span>

<span>"It looked bad, water coming through the ceiling," said Randy Eckert, owner of the Food Mart. "The fire department took charge and another 15 to 20 minutes and the whole building would be gone."</span>

<span>Kempfer said firefighters were on scene for two hours and 15 minutes. Ellis Grove firefighters were called for mutual aid, while Chester firefighters were paged to stand by for Ellis Grove.</span>

"We had MedStar on standby as a precaution," he said. "But we do that for all our fires."