A fire in an apartment at a west Roanoke County retirement community caused the evacuation of some of the center's residents Monday morning but nobody was injured, officials said.

According to Roanoke County Fire and Rescue spokeswoman Jennifer Conley Sexton, crews from Fort Lewis, Mason Cove, Hollins, Cave Spring and Salem responded to a fire about 10:45 a.m. at the Ridgecrest complex within the Richfield Retirement Community.

The blaze was in a kitchen on the fifth floor and crews contained it to that room and extinguished it, she said, but there was smoke damage throughout the fifth floor and parts of other floors. Residents of the fifth and sixth floors, and some from other affected floors, were not able to return to their rooms until the smoke damage had been taken care of.

Conley Sexton estimated that about 60 residents had been temporarily displaced.

The only unit that remained unlivable Monday night was the one where the fire started, Conley Sexton said. She said the fire started after a resident unintentionally turned on a stove that had combustible items on it.

A damage estimate was not available Monday night.

-- Neil Harvey