After months of false alarms, about 70 residents of a newly renovated West Philadelphia apartment building evacuated, surprised and shoeless, from a smoky three-alarm inferno yesterday morning.
"I was just sleeping and me and my girlfriend heard a woman screaming, saying, 'It's a real fire. It's a real fire,' " Kahlil Dantzler, 23, said. "I didn't even hear the alarm."
The fire at the Cobbs Creek Court Apartments, 6235 Chestnut St., started about 10 a.m. in a basement apartment and shot up through the walls to the roof, fire officials said. There were no injuries as a result of the fire, although one man was taken from a temporary shelter with chest pains. His condition was not available.
Dantzler, an auto mechanic, and his girlfriend, Danielle Williams, 18, said they had complained to fire officials and management regularly about faulty fire alarms since moving into the five-story building in December. The alarms either did not work or sounded frequently for no reason, they said.
"So people stick their heads out the window and if they don't see smoke, they go right back in the apartment," Dantzler said.
Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said that the fire marshal's office was investigating the cause of the blaze and that the city's Department of Licenses & Inspections would look into residents' allegations.
Ayers said the building had "arson issues" in the past. He said he could not elaborate.
"We are familiar with that building," Ayers said. "L&I will be investigating. All code violations will be corrected."
A message left at a telephone number listed for building management was not returned. A Jobstown, N.J., partnership, Hancock Street Properties, purchased the building for $1.6 million in May 2002, according to public documents. It was unclear whether the company still owned the property. A telephone number for the business could not be located.
About two dozen residents remained outside on Chestnut Street yesterday afternoon, waiting to hear from firefighters whether it was safe to return home. Others found shelter at the nearby We Are More Than Conquerors Deliverance Ministries at 11 S. 63d St. Fire officials later said residents would not be allowed back in the building for at least three days.
Ciara McKey, 17, and her sister, Kelly Marsh, 22, sat on a doorstep across the street as firefighters surveyed the damage.
"We thought it was fake," McKey said. "Then somebody knocked on my door."
Marsh said that when there was a fire a couple of months ago, her alarm did not sound.
Firefighters escorted residents into their apartments to retrieve medication and other objects yesterday afternoon.
At the church, the Rev. Donald Parks Jr. planned to keep families comfortable until the Red Cross found them a place to spend the night. About 30 residents - including Williams and her 17-year-old brother, Jeffrey - waited in the church's fellowship room yesterday afternoon.
"It's just been really stressful," Williams said, as her brother punched on the keys of his handheld GameBoy. "To see all those little kids standing out there crying, all these people not knowing what to do or where to go. "
Pat Ma, a Red Cross spokeswoman, said about 54 units in the building were occupied at the time of the fire. She said 22 people had registered with the Red Cross for temporary housing as of yesterday evening.
Distributed by the Associated Press
