Investigation continues into weekend DuPage apartment fire
As the investigation into a weekend fire at an apartment building between Lombard and Glen Ellyn continues, some displaced residents are facing uncertainty about where they’ll live next.
The fire started just past midnight Saturday morning at the Willow Lake Apartments at 2100 Lynn Road and heavily damaged half of the three-story building, caving in the roof and forcing 24 families to evacuate.
Investigators from the DuPage County Fire Investigation Task Force continued to probe the cause of the blaze Tuesday. Glen Ellyn Volunteer Fire Company Chief Jim Bodony said burn patterns indicate the fire started near the third-floor balcony.
At this point the ignition source is not known, and the cause of the fire labeled “undetermined,” but Bodony said an accelerant-sniffing dog has been brought in as well as a forensic electrical engineer to see if the fire was caused by an air conditioner adjacent to the building.
Bodony said it appears there was a delay in the alarm because the system was not connected to DuPage Public Safety Communications, or DU-COMM, which provides public safety communications services to police, fire and EMS agencies. Without it, residents must call 911 for emergency responders to be dispatched.
Bodony said firefighters were called at 1:52 a.m. and were on the scene seven minutes later.
“It’s pretty apparent the fire went undetected for a considerable amount of time before the alarm went off because of the destruction of the roof in the attic space,” Bodony said. “We got up on the roof and it was still burning.”
The fire caused 24 families to be displaced. Residents were told by Willow Lake management on Saturday that they would be provided alternate housing.
Days later roommates Lisa Amburn and John Stotts, among the Willow Lake residents displaced by the fire, still were uncertain where they will be living next. Stotts said they were told by apartment management there were limited vacancies and a safety concern with housing residents in the 12 other units.
“We’re trying to figure out what our options are,” Stotts said.
Stotts and Amburn woke to their building’s fire alarm just before 2 a.m. Saturday.
“It was scorched corner to corner,” Stotts said. “We’re not going up there to get anything.”
The Red Cross paid for a hotel room and food over the weekend, and provided Amburn and Stotts with a care package that included tooth paste and other toiletries. Waiting to talk to apartment management, Amburn and Stotts didn’t know what was next.
“We really don’t know much,” Amburn said. “Our apartment is gone. We don’t know if we have a place to live.”
The three-story building houses 24 units, but the building is separated by a fire wall with 12 units on each side. The blaze did extensive damage to 12 units on the north side of the building, but the other 12 units were spared.
Willow Lake’s apartment manager declined to comment on how displaced residents are being assisted. Attempts to reach the property’s management company were unsuccessful.