Michelle Davies | The Journal Gazette
A fire at the Dupont Lakes apartment complex gutted several homes on Saturday night.
Last updated: August 1, 2011 11:16 a.m.
Fire burns 36-unit apartment building
The residents of a 36-unit apartment building in north Fort Wayne were displaced after a fire burned through the roof and gutted part of the upper floor early Sunday, city fire officials said.
Firefighters were sent to 10004 Dupont Lakes Drive, near Dupont Road and Interstate 69, shortly after 3 a.m. As they drove to the building, they could see flames shooting through the roof from a block away, Assistant Chief Jim Murua said.
Murua said many of the residents had evacuated the three-story structure by the time fire crews arrived. He said firefighters went through the building knocking on doors, making sure all the apartments were empty.
It took firefighters about one hour and 15 minutes to get the fire under control.
Murua said a resident’s grill on a second-floor balcony started the fire. “The hot coals that were still in the grill ignited combustibles that were too close,” he said, adding that having a grill on the balcony was a fire-code violation.
Not all 36 apartments were damaged by the flames and smoke. Murua estimated that 18 of them were not affected by the fire. Residents in those 18 units were allowed to go back into their homes to gather belongings.
Anna Prindle, 28, and her 4-year-old son, Tyler, were waiting outside the building Sunday afternoon to retrieve some their things. “We weren’t even home last night, thank God,” she said.
She said the company that manages the building, Edward Rose & Sons, was going to be putting up some of the displaced residents in vacant apartments elsewhere in the Dupont Lakes complex.
The building that caught fire Sunday has six sections, and each section contains six apartments and has its own street address.
Addresses 10002 and 10004 appeared to have the worst damage and were boarded up Sunday afternoon. Blue sky could be seen where the roofs of those addresses once were.
Heaps of various soot-covered debris – a shoe, a clothes hanger, a gym bag – sat on the grass in front of the burned structure. On the back side of the building, where the fire is believed to have started, the heaps were bigger and contained couches, tables and chairs.
Addresses 10006, 10008, 10010 and 10012 were not boarded up and did not have damage that could be seen from outside.
Murua said utilities were turned off throughout the entire building, therefore no one was able to stay there.
He said residents of unaffected apartments may be able to return to their homes in a few days.
For residents in apartments that received fire damage, firefighters gathered essentials like purses, wallets, cell phones and prescriptions, Murua said.
Katherine MacAulay, chief operations officer of the American Red Cross in northeast Indiana, said her organization assisted families from 19 of the apartments, providing them with food, lodging, clothing and replacement medication. She said three of the units in the building were vacant.
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