Teen alerts neighbors to Wheaton apartment fire; no one hurt

Justin Bellanfonte was trying to relax in the pool when he heard a buzzing noise and instinctively knew something was wrong.

The 16-year-old saw smoke from a third-floor window in his Wheaton apartment building and went to investigate. Soaking wet from an evening swim Monday, the teen tracked down the source of the noise - a smoke detector - and reached out to the third-floor apartment's door knob.

It was hot to the touch.

That's when he sprang into action: flipping the switch on the building's fire alarm and yelling "fire!" down the hallways.

"It was just more so adrenaline," he said Tuesday. "I was more frantic at the time."

Justin helped alert neighbors who were unaware of the blaze until he activated the alarm. One woman was jolted out of sleep from her apartment near the unit that would be heavily damaged from the fire, he said.

The 6-foot-2 nose guard on the Glenbard South football team didn't stop there. He dialed 911 and phoned his mom, who in turn, called the couple who lives in the apartment and were out shopping when the fire began, Justin said. And he held the door open for firefighters who were called about 7:15 p.m. Monday to the building on the 1600 block of Briarcliffe Boulevard.

He finally paused when his friend handed him a towel to dry off from the earlier swim.

"I was a little in shock from what had happened," he said. "It was just a normal day, and then out of the blue."

His mom, Anita Norman, said the husband and wife who lived in the apartment where the fire began were newly married and "lost about everything." Their home was declared uninhabitable, Wheaton fire officials said Tuesday.

"Everything is covered in black soot," said Justin, whose unit is directly below the damaged one. "It's just really charred."

Still, there were no injuries, and the complex's residents were able to safely evacuate. The fire was declared under control within minutes, authorities said.

The cause of the fire has been deemed accidental by investigators, and appears to have been related to an unattended item on a stove. Damage estimates weren't immediately available.

Norman feared what more could have happened without her son's quick thinking.

"I don't think I could have held it together the way he did," she said.

Justin spent Tuesday again at a pool, this time trying to calm his nerves.

"I'm sure he's still shook up about it," his mom said.