MARSHALL — Residents of a Marshall apartment building were displaced after a basement fire Friday afternoon. Marshall Fire Chief Quentin Brunsvold said the fire was under investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Residents would not be able to return to the building, located at the corner of South Fifth Street and Mill Street, until it could be fully checked for safety.

The Red Cross was notified to help residents of the building, Brunsvold said. He did not have a total count of the number of residents, but seven of the building’s eight apartment units were occupied, he said.

There were no injuries or fatalities reported in the fire.

Shortly before 4 p.m., the Marshall Fire Department was called to a report of a fire in the apartment building. Brunsvold said it was reported that the fire was in the basement, and smoke was coming up the stairs.

“That turned out to be very accurate,” Brunsvold said. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they found smoke coming up into the building. “To try and get it ventilated was a challenge,” he said.

Brunsvold said there was some damage to stored items in the building’s basement, as well as smoke damage and some water damage in the basement.

Residents of the apartment building were among the people watching the fire response Friday. Jordan Holton said he had called his landlord about an odor in the building earlier that afternoon. Holton said he had left his apartment, and when he came back about 45 minutes later the fire department was there.

There have been other fire incidents at the same building in past years. Before Friday, the most recent incident was a 2018 fire in a second-floor apartment, which injured one person and displaced about a dozen others. In that incident, a 29-year-old man suffered smoke inhalation, and was later flown to a Sioux Falls burn unit for treatment of his injuries.