One person jumps to safety as fire destroys 6 apartments in Ann Arbor
A man was able to jump to safety early this morning as a fast-burning fire destroyed six apartments in Ann Arbor, displacing nearly a dozen residents.
Ann Arbor firefighters were called to the blaze at 3:30 a.m. and discovered fire on the second floor of the Willowtree apartments at 1837 Shirley Lane on the city’s northeast side.
An Ann Arbor fire official talks on the phone in the aftermath of a fire at Willowtree Apartments on the city's north side this morning.
Lee Higgins | AnnArbor.com
The fire quickly spread to the third floor and attic. All 16 on-duty Ann Arbor firefighters battled the blaze, and about 8 off-duty Ann Arbor firefighters were called in, Battalion Chief Kevin Cook said.
Firefighters from the City of Ypsilanti and Pittsfield and Ypsilanti townships also assisted. Firefighters brought the blaze under control in an hour, according to the press release.
Cook said Ann Arbor Fire Marshal Kathleen Chamberlain was at the scene this morning investigating the cause of the fire.
Cook said 10 or 11 residents were displaced from their homes. Several of the apartments were unoccupied.
All 24 apartments were evacuated and all but four had smoke and water damage and lost power, according to the release.
Firefighters were still on the scene shortly before 7 a.m. this morning.
The Washtenaw County Chapter of the American Red Cross assisted the displaced residents with food. Willowtree staff members and the University of Michigan are working to relocate the residents, according to the press release.
The property is owned by American Campus Communities, a woman who answered the phone at Willowtree Apartments this morning confirmed. She said the property has 473 units in all. American Campus Communities is one of the nation's largest student housing operators.
The woman, who would not provide her name, said she couldn't answer any questions about the fire.
The complex was listed for sale last fall.
Comments
treetowntenor
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 : 12:33 p.m.
Glad nobody was hurt. Thanks, AAFD; we know it's not your fault that you're being stretched so thin, and we all appreciate what you do for us. Dear City of Ann Arbor: Heaven help us if we have a tornado. Mutual aid agreements are useless if the surrounding townships are busy helping their own citizens.
Carole
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 : 12:31 p.m.
Great job to our marvelous AAFD folks and thanks to those who came in to assist. And, I agree with a few of the other comments, what would have happened if another fire had broken out in the area. To continue to cut our fire and police department is just asking for disaster. Please, folks vote today -- we need to get the city back.
aanewsmemories
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 : 10:50 a.m.
Again, excellent work by our local firefighters. I am very thankful that no one was seriously injured or killed. But, to echo everydayguy's comment, where was Ann Arbor Township? This is the second significant fire in that part of town in the last several days - see <a href="http://www.annarbor.com/news/fire-in-ann-arbor-home-contained-to-family-room/">http://www.annarbor.com/news/fire-in-ann-arbor-home-contained-to-family-room/</a> regarding the house fire on the Northeast side on 7/28/11. At that fire and this fire, Ann Arbor Twp Stations 1 and 2 were closer than all of the responding stations except AA City #5 (and in this fire, probably AA City Station #1.) They were closer than the rest of the city stations, and closer than all of the other responding departments. Once again, the problem is that fire departments in this area respond to incidents based on governmental boundaries, not on a "closest station" basis. The township vs. city location of a home should not matter. The CLOSEST stations should be sent so that lives and property are saved a quickly and efficiently as possible. Additional help took longer to get to the scene because closer stations were not called. This means that the fire had extra time to grow AND that responding fire equipment had to travel longer distances than necessary with lights and sirens, which is itself DANGEROUS to firefighters and the general public. Our area governments need to put politics aside and dispatch fire departments on a closest station basis. This is common sense and is safer for fire victims, responding firefighters, and the general public that shares the road with responding emergency vehicles.
True Facts
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 : 7:40 a.m.
everydayguy I think the answer to having Pittsfield and Ypsilanti over Ann Arbor Twp is as simple as Ann Arbor Twp gets a fire about every five years. Where the rest of depts in the county fight fire more often wich makes them a little more on there game.
Milton Shift
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 : 6:26 a.m.
Hats off to our firefighters for risking their health and their lives to keep us safe. Good job.
Stuart Brown
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 : 5:32 a.m.
What is important here is that response time is the most critical since fires progress quickly. Slow response times mean the fire will be much bigger, requiring more personal to extinguish the fire. The cuts in the Fire Department correlate with longer response times. About two extra people a year are dying from fires in Ann Arbor after the city reduced the staff by about 40 fire fighters over the last 10 years (compare the current average number of deaths by fire in Ann Arbor over the last 10 years with the previous 10 years.) Of course, for every extra death, how much extra property damage and injuries take place? Fires that burn longer do much more damage to property and injure more people but at least the city saves money! Juries award about 1 million dollars in a wrongful death verdict, so the city is costing the rest of us at least 2 million per year from fire deaths alone. Also, Fire Department personnel save lives by responding to medical emergencies, so how many more people will be left to die so the city can save money?
buildergirl
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 9:22 p.m.
Thank goodness we are spending $150k on art work. Clearly the fire department has all it needs. We can always just call someone in if needed. It's not like battling a fire has a time crunch or anything. {Insert Sarcasm Sign Here}
stevek
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 7:56 p.m.
How about some postings thanking the Red Cross for being on scene to help the victims of these fires, make sure their needs are taken care of, and making sure the firefighters are hydrated--instead of slamming the state of the economy?
Sallyxyz
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 6:51 p.m.
"The fire quickly spread to the third floor and attic. All 16 on-duty Ann Arbor firefighters battled the blaze, and about 8 off-duty Ann Arbor firefighters were called in, Battalion Chief Kevin Cook said." Great. They used all available firefighters for this blaze. People think that because all available personnel were able to extinguish this fire that the cuts are ok. What if there had been another call while all available personnel were fighting this fire? No extra people to respond.
Ricebrnr
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 6:11 p.m.
"All 16 on-duty Ann Arbor firefighters battled the blaze, and about 8 off-duty Ann Arbor firefighters were called in" Good thing there wasn't another fire too or else who would've responded? How much longer would the response have taken? I too am interested in the stats of AA's response to this event... The Ivory Tower folks are gambling with our lives I don't like it and I mean to make that know at the polls.
dexterreader
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 3:25 p.m.
My son, niece and several of their friends just moved out of this complex this past weekend. I'm assuming that is probably the case of many residents since leases expired July 31, and the complex is primarily students. In that respect, the timing couldn't have been better. Still, I'm glad no one was injured. Things can be replaced. People can't.
EyeHeartA2
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 3 p.m.
So, how much faster would the fire have been put out if there hadn't been layoffs? Don't know the anwser to that? Never mind, we can still speculate.
pvitaly
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 2:25 p.m.
Fire fighters put the fire out. Nobody was hurt. People still complain about cutting services.
Bill
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 8:05 p.m.
The fact that off duty fire fighters and neighboring community fire fighters were called in is an indicate that Ann Arbor was unable to handle their own fire. What if more people had been in those apartments as another individual commented? What if the fire had been larger in scale? Ann Arbor was fortunate that it was able to put this out quickly and with only property damage and no injury. This fact does not excuse the mayor and city council of the poor decisions to lay off fire fighters and spend money on public art and other unnecessary items.
FireTimes
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 7:24 p.m.
Maybe that's because the other taxpayers in the munincipalities that sent FF's were shorted the Fire Coverage their taxes pay for. Or perhaps because those same taxpayers just paid overtime costs to cover their already paid for Stations when off-duty FF's are called in to cover the ones sent to a different city.
BornNRaised
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 2:20 p.m.
Are you serious? Women are getting raped in the streets and he's still comfortable. So what if a few homes burn. He's ok with it all.
tomnspats
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 1:44 p.m.
Thank God this was not three weeks later,when this building would be full.How does the Roger Frazier plan look now?Time to rethink the fire and police layoffs.Are you still comfortable Mr Mayor?
everydayguy
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 12:26 p.m.
@a2grateful, I'm also glad everyone was okay. In addition, from what I understand, most fire departments, regardless of size, engage in 'mutual aid' agreements, whereby they can request assistance from a neighboring community for really big fires, and in turn can be asked for assistance when a neighboring community has a really big fire. Seems like a prudent thing to do. What concerns me more is that of all the neighboring communities that were called for help, Ann Arbor Township is conspicuously absent. They cover the area adjacent to the city limits to the north and east of that incident. Given your comment regarding response time from the ancillary departments, I have to think they could have delivered trucks and firefighters to the scene quicker than Pittsfield and the two Ypsilanti departments, as they have stations off of Pontiac Trail and over by the Toyota Technical Center. Makes me curious, but in the end, the important thing is that nobody was hurt.
a2grateful
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 12:15 p.m.
Thankfully, everyone was uninjured: occupants and firefighters alike. Some interesting questions remain. How many firefighters did it take to extinguish this fire? How many were a2 city firefighters? How many trucks were needed? How many were a2 city fire trucks? What was the response time for the city? What was the response time for the ancillaries? Finally, is it typical for a 100k-plus-population city to seek assistance from surrounding cities and townships for a fire of this magnitude?
Craig Lounsbury
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 12:09 p.m.
"the place is about 60 percent unoccupied " is that a vacancy rate or is that a students gone for summer with leases in place rate?
Melvin
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 2:20 p.m.
60% unoccupied because for alot of people they had to move out yesterday.
Ariel
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 1:19 p.m.
They also have a fixed lease date, unlike other apartment complexes where you can move in whenever as long as you have a 1 year lease agreement. At Willowtree, their lease is only from August to July.
Diane
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 1:14 p.m.
Because the day before was "turn" Students not returning moved out by noon on August 1st, New students will be moving in on the 21st. So most of them JUST moved out.
quetzalcoatl
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 : 11:43 a.m.
Glad nobody got hurt. But the place is about 60 percent unoccupied and the fire starts in a vacant apartment. I am sure insurance investigators will conclude spontaneous combustion was to blame.