Just before noon on Thursday, Oct. 13, residents of Mallards Landing Apartment Homes evacuated amid billows of dark smoke. About a dozen units were affected, according to eyewitnesses. The complex houses a couple hundred residents in more than a dozen apartment blocks.
“I saw smoke coming from the other room, and within 30 seconds I had grabbed my car keys and ran outside,” says one resident, who prefers to remain anonymous amid pending legal action against Morgan Properties, which operates across 19 states. "Other tenants were gathering in the parking lot." The resident shared multiple work orders with the Scene that detail persistent issues with electrical wiring in the apartment block that caught fire on Thursday. One work order is dated Oct. 11.
District 30 Councilperson Sandra Sepulveda has helped coordinate aid for displaced residents. The Red Cross and the Hispanic Family Foundation are both involved in relief efforts.
Mallards Landing is just off I-24 at Haywood Lane, a couple miles from the Foxcroft Apartments complex, which burned in June, and Harding Glen apartments, which burned in February. Dover Glen, which burned in May, and British Woods, which burned in June, are closer to Murfreesboro Road. Last month, fires hit The Village at Grassmere, a condo complex near the Nashville Zoo, and Lyncrest Reserve in Bellevue.
Nashville Fire Department spokesperson Kendra Loney tells the Scene that determining the cause of an apartment fire can be like “finding a needle in a haystack.” Floors collapse on each other, muddying the scene for NFD investigators. Investigations are closed for all of the seven fires listed above. Mallards Landing and Harding Glen were both found to be electrical fires. Investigators did not determine an origin for any of the remaining five fires.
“Unless we have someone running away from the scene with a gas can, or someone says they saw something directly, it’s difficult to determine anything about the cause of an apartment fire,” says Loney. She also warns that increased demand for heating during colder months can increase fire risk. “It’s our busy season — heating elements are coming into play.”
A Morgan Properties employee at Mallards Landing referred the Scene to the company’s media relations department. The company did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
