Apartment building fire displaces 16; smoking ruled as cause

Bill Novak  —  9/09/2008 12:21 pm

A fire that severely damaged an apartment building early Tuesday morning was accidentally caused by smoking, Madison fire officials said.

The blaze at 2101 Pike Drive on the city's south side put 16 people out of their homes.

Ervin Bendorf, owner of the eight-unit apartment building, told The Capital Times the same apartment had five or six fire calls over the years, usually because of food left on the stove.

"It's terrible," Bendorf said. "I told the tenants, 'You are going to drive everyone out of my building,' and now they did."

The smoky, stubborn blaze caused an estimated $500,000 worth of damage to the building.

Bendorf said he has a no-smoking policy in the apartment building, a policy that apparently went unheeded Monday night.

Fire alarms alerted the residents to the blaze, and everyone was able to get out without any injuries.

"I just had the fire alarms certified," Bendorf said. "We get the alarms certified once a year."

The fire started about 2 a.m. and wasn't brought under control until about an hour later, said Madison Fire Department public information officer Lori Wirth.

"Ladder 6 was the first company to get here, and they tried to get inside the front door but only got in 4-6 feet before being driven back by the heat and flame," Wirth said. "We had to put a water tower on the flames for the better part of an hour."

Tenant Ericka Collins lived in an upstairs apartment.

"Someone banged on my door to get out," Collins said. "I put my clothes on over my pajamas, grabbed my keys and purse and ran out.

"The hall was so smoke-filled I had to find my way to the stairs. I have renter's insurance, but my home is totaled."

The apartment building manager, Guy Aaroen, lives a block down the street from the burned building.

"I heard about it a few minutes after it started," Aaroen said. "When I got outside I could see flames coming from the building."

Bendorf said the building was one of the nicest apartment buildings in the area, with good tenants.

He comforted tenants milling about the outside of the building, trying to reassure them, but he didn't know if there was much to salvage for many of the tenants.

"The building is insured, but I don't know if we'll rebuild or not," he said.

One tenant went into his first-floor apartment through a burned-out patio door to retrieve several photos from his walls.

Collins looked on. "All my pictures are gone," she said.

The Badger Chapter of the American Red Cross was on the scene to help the residents find shelter.

The roof of the building collapsed, and some interior floors also collapsed, but Wirth said there's a chance for some items to be salvageable if and when it's safe to get inside the building.

Firefighters remained at the scene for several hours after the blaze was under control, putting out occasional flare-ups on the second floor.

The heat of the fire caused some siding on nearby buildings to melt, but no structural damage was reported on any other building.

A total of six units responded to the blaze, including Ladders 6 and 1, Engines 4 and 7 and Rescue Units 6 and 9.

While all residents in the building evacuated safely, firefighters conducting a search of the building rescued a boa constrictor from an apartment.

"We found the boa constrictor in an aquarium," Wirth said. "He was still alive, so we put him in a cooler and gave him back to his family."

Bill Novak  —  9/09/2008 12:21 pm