Officials say smoke inhalation caused deaths of 3 in fire in Ann Arbor home

Authorities have identified three members of a family killed in a fire in their southwest Ann Arbor home and said today the preliminary cause of death is smoke inhalation.

Meanwhile, fire investigators say it could take months to pinpoint the cause of the blaze, which was reported at about 3 a.m. Sunday on Waverly Road.

The bodies were identified this afternoon as Demetri and Joanna Alexandropoulos, and their 42-year-old son John. John Alexandropoulos also had a brain hemorrhage, but it's unclear whether that occurred before or during the fire, according to Washtenaw County Deputy Medical Examiner Jeffrey Jentzen.

Firefighters search the rubble for family members Sunday afternoon.

Toxicology results are not yet available.

The bodies were found at 1701 Waverly Road Sunday afternoon, hours after the blaze caused the home's walls and roof to collapse into the basement.

The cause of the fire, which may have started in the basement, remains under investigation, Ann Arbor Assistant Fire Chief Ed Dziubinski said.

Investigators have received conflicting reports from neighbors about where John Alexandropoulos slept.

Some said he was living in the basement, not in one of the two upstairs bedrooms. But Dziubinski said authorities have yet to determine where the family members were when the fire broke out.

The house was not equipped with a sprinkler system, and investigators have found no evidence of smoke detectors, Dziubinski said.

"Please, please, please check your smoke detectors," he said.

The fire caused $170,000 damage to the 800-square-foot brick home. An estimated value of contents was not available. It also caused heat damage to two cars in the driveway of the home next door on Weldon Boulevard.

Firefighters were flagged down to the ranch-style home at the intersection of Waverly Road and Weldon Boulevard at 3:08 a.m., Dziubinski said.

At 2:56 a.m., they responded to a 911 call of a column of smoke at a home on Greenview Drive. That smoke may have been coming from the Waverly Road fire, Dziubinski said.

Fire units responded to four different addresses before being flagged down at the site of the blaze, Dziubinski said.

"People were calling into 911 and not giving complete addresses from where they were calling from," he said.

Firefighters aim to make it to a scene in four minutes or less, he said. Asked whether arriving minutes earlier would have made a difference, Dziubinski said, "I don't think so."

One person called 911 at 3:03 a.m., which is seven minutes after the Greenview call, reporting that the house was engulfed, Dziubinkski said.

Dziubinski declined to release a copy of the radio communications today, citing the ongoing investigation.

It could take months to determine the cause of the fire, he said.

"Everything had collapsed into the basement by the time our investigation began," he said. "It's very difficult to narrow down a char pattern and actually work our way backwards."

Lee Higgins covers crime and courts for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at leehiggins@annarbor.com or 734-623-2527.