Smoke plumes rise from East St. Louis vacant building fire

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) - East St. Louis Fire Chief Jason Blackmon says a blaze in a vacant apartment building "really took off," prompting his crews to make an aggressive attack to get it under control.

Aerial footage of the Monday morning fire from KMOV-TV in St. Louis showed large plumes of smoke rising from the building as a firefighter atop a crane sprayed water onto flames. Blackmon says firefighters don't believe anyone was in the building at the time of the fire. He says firefighters were alerted about 7 a.m. and got the blaze under control.

Blackmon says it's too soon to know what caused the fire. He says the building had six to seven units. No firefighters were injured and no other fire departments responded to the extra-alarm blaze.