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10 Injured in High-Rise Apartment Fire
Damage confined to trash chute; many residents were reluctant to leave
By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
October 07, 2025
Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(With reporting from Vickie Babyak and Jason Togyer)
Residents wait outside Midtown Plaza Apartments on Sunday after fire forced the evacuation of most of the high-rise building. (Vickie Babyak photo for Tube City Almanac)
Six residents and four firefighters sustained minor injuries Sunday after fire broke out in a trash chute in a Downtown high-rise apartment building.
McKeesport fire Chief Jeff Tomovcsik said the blaze at Midtown Plaza Apartments went to three-alarms and that some residents — who have heard false alarms in the past — were reluctant to evacuate.
The Allegheny County fire marshal’s office is investigating.
Many of the residents of the building are senior citizens or on fixed incomes. The building was previously owned by a subsidiary of PNC Bank, but was sold in December 2024 for $500,000 to a New York-based company, according to county records.
Resident Susie Ford said she lives on the third floor and although she heard smoke alarms, didn’t want to leave because she suffers from agoraphobia. Ford said she was forced to leave when a firefighters kicked down her apartment door and told her to evacuate.
“I got about 30 feet from the exit and I kept telling the police I have agoraphobia,” Ford said. “I don’t think they understand how hard it is for me when I don’t feel safe standing outside.”
Ford said a police officer told her she would be arrested if she didn’t leave.
Tomovcsik said the fire was generating heavy smoke — especially on the upper floors of the building — and emergency personnel were concerned about the risk of allowing people to stay inside.
Six people were taken to UPMC McKeesport hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, he said.
“We had a fair amount of people who evacuated, but we had almost as many stay in the building,” Tomovcsik said. “Unfortunately, we get quite a few fire alarm activations in that building, and the residents have become used to them.”
Once the fire was extinguished, he said, crews worked to ventilate smoke from the upper floors, and some residents of the 10th and 11th floor were allowed to shelter in place unless they had a medical reason to leave.
From 2018 until 2024, Midtown Plaza Apartments and the nearby Hi-View Gardens complex on Sixth Avenue were owned by a real estate subsidiary of PNC Bank.
A series of investigations by Pittsburgh-based PublicSource and WESA-FM radio found that both Midtown Plaza and Hi-View were suffering from numerous health and safety problems, including broken fire alarms, rodent and insect infestations, and malfunctioning heating systems and elevators.
PublicSource reported that between 2019 and 2020, health code violations, housing code violations and emergency calls at the properties went up nearly 50 percent over 2017 and 2018.
Tube City Almanac asked the Allegheny County Health Department if they had received any recent complaints about problems at Midtown Plaza Apartments or if the department was aware of Sunday’s fire. The health department did not immediately respond.
A person who answered the phone at the Midtown Plaza management office on Monday would not speak to a reporter and said no one from the management company would be willing to answer questions from the media. “We’re in the midst of trying to take care of the residents,” she said.
Workers from Sable Kennels help residents secure pets during Sunday’s emergency. (Vickie Babyak photo for Tube City Almanac)
Allegheny County property tax records, Pennsylvania and Florida corporation records, and other filings indicate that Midtown Plaza Apartments is owned by a limited-liability company based in Orange County, N.Y., just outside of New York City, and list a New York man, Joseph Niederman, as the primary contact person.
An attempt to locate a phone number or email address for Niederman was not successful.
Tomovcsik said police and firefighters had to break down a significant number of doors in order to evacuate residents, but that damage to the building was otherwise mainly smoke-related.
The American Red Cross was providing smoke cleanup kits to residents, Tomovcsik said.
Although the fire department and McKeesport’s building inspectors have met with the building management to discuss code violations and health and safety issues, “none of those issues” contributed to Sunday’s fire, he said.
Tomovcsik said he could not speculate why or how the trash chute caught fire, but that there was no fire in the basement, indicating that debris had possibly gotten stuck on an upper floor, and ignited.
“It definitely was not in the basement,” he said. “We pulled the compactor off the wall and got rid of all of the trash stuck in the chute.”
Investigators were reviewing surveillance camera footage from the building, Tomovcsik said.
Residents remained outside of the building for several hours while crews ventilated the structure, with some, like Ford, still waiting to return at 4 p.m. Sunday.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m worried if my door will lock since it was kicked in,” she said.
Crews remained on the scene until nearly 5 p.m., Tomovcsik said. Managers for the apartment complex had a fire damage restoration contractor on scene Sunday, he said.
In addition to McKeesport firefighters, crews responded from Allegheny County Airport, Dravosburg, Duquesne, Duquesne Annex, Glassport Citizens Hose, Homeville, Liberty Borough, Munhall No. 1, Munhall No. 4, Port Vue Vigilant Hose, Rainbow, Swissvale, West Mifflin No. 3 and White Oak No. 1, along with the Salvation Army and American Red Cross.
(Vickie Babyak photo for Tube City Almanac)
Originally published October 07, 2025.
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