Deadly electrical fire at Detroit's Kamper Stevens Apartments leaves tenants in the dark
(CBS DETROIT) – A deadly fire at a Detroit high-rise apartment building is sparking renewed concerns about the building's maintenance issues.
According to the Detroit Fire Department, the fire broke out in an electrical box in one of the stairwells at the Kamper Stevens Apartment Monday afternoon, knocking out power to the 22-story building.
On Tuesday, electricians were on site trying to restore service after some tenants spent the night at a hotel down the street.
This is just the latest inconvenience that tenants like 74-year-old Irene Igol have to deal with.
"You can smell wires burning. You know, the white smoke; we had our mask on, but our eyes were burning," Irene Igol said.
So Irene Igol, along with her husband Max, who recently had foot surgery, made their way toward one of the smoke-filled stairwells.
"In the beginning, I heard her say, 'I can't breathe.' So when I called again, 'Irene', she didn't answer. I got really scared. I thought maybe she passed out or something," Max Igol said.
Max Igol came to find out a Detroit firefighter took Irene down to the lobby using the only working elevator.
Tenants say the three other elevators have been out of service for a while.
"I asked the manager, 'When are we going to fix this elevator?' She says, 'When the owner gets $22,000, that's when they're gonna fix it," Irene Igol said.
A troubling response for a building that many senior citizens who have limited mobility call home
"We're down to one elevator that works sometimes," said tenant Clora Williams.
Amid the chaos, DFD says Linda's next-door neighbor suffered a fatal medical emergency. Linda hopes this tragedy will enact some drastic changes.
"Have we been on the lower floor, like on a lower level, six or seven or even lower, she might have stood a chance, but coming from the 14th floor, don't nobody stand a chance like that, especially there's a lot of smoke," said Linda, who didn't wish to disclose her last name.
Both DFD and the property owner told CBS News Detroit Monday's fire had nothing to do with the elevators.
In a statement to CBS News Detroit, BSEED Director David Bell wrote:
"1410 Washington was significantly renovated and updated in 2018, with the exception of the elevators. The building had its annual inspection on 7/25/24. During the inspection, no significant issues aside from the elevators were found."
Kamper Stevens Apartment property management provided this statement to CBS News Detroit:
"An electrical fire occurred today at the Louis Kamper Building, a senior housing property in downtown Detroit. During the ensuing evacuation, two residents were transported to the hospital and a third died at the property. The building's owners and management are devastated to learn of the death of one their residents, and are cooperating with authorities to investigate the cause of the fire. Electricity has been restored to a portion of the building and contractors onsite working to restore power to the balance of the units as soon as possible. In the meantime, ownership is providing accommodations to the remaining the residents. There was an elevator outage that was remedied last week, that had no connection to the electrical fire that occurred yesterday afternoon. The power is restored to a portion of the building, and the electrician is working on site to restore electricity to the remainder. We do not have an estimated time yet, but will provide one as soon as possible."
