Tenants flee burning apartments

John Howell
Posted 9/22/15

Michelle Nelson is a light sleeper. Thank God.

It wasn’t her husband Jon’s snoring that awoke her early Saturday morning. Rather, it was a distant fire alarm that sounded like an alarm clock, …

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Tenants flee burning apartments

Posted

Michelle Nelson is a light sleeper. Thank God.

It wasn’t her husband Jon’s snoring that awoke her early Saturday morning. Rather, it was a distant fire alarm that sounded like an alarm clock, and her neighbor Dave Burr. He was banging on windows, so she got up to see what he was doing. She didn’t know what to think at first. He was in his underwear, frantically pounding on the outside of an adjoining apartment. He was yelling, “Fire, fire get out.”

Michelle was awake now.

She saw a red glow and didn’t hesitate. She called 911. She roused her daughter Kaitlyn and Jon and urged them to beat it out of their unit in Building 1 of the Four Seasons Apartments on Warwick Avenue. It was 2:20 a.m. Michelle kicked the doors of neighboring tenants.

“I was yelling, ‘Get the hell out,’” she said.

Amazingly, given the time and that almost all of the 48 units of Building 1 were occupied and people were asleep, everyone made it out.

Sunday morning the scene was transformed from the confusion of only 24 hours earlier. A grounds crew was raking up bits of charred debris from the fire. Yellow tape cordoned off the scene, and unless you went to the back of the building the effects of the blaze were hardly visible.

Tenants gathered in clusters in the parking lot. Many whose units were in the building but were spared from the fire wondered when they would be allowed back in. They were the fortunate ones. Others like the Nelsons and Charlie Hunt, who lost his cat in the fire, knew they would never be living in the same Four Seasons unit. They hoped to recover personal belongings from the apartments that had been drenched and filled with smoke.

The night of the fire was fresh in the minds of many.

Jon Nelson is still in awe of firefighters who entered the burning building to rescue pets. His dog, a 12-year-old Siberian husky, Nanook, made it out, but was having trouble breathing.

“They gave him oxygen and that really helped,” he said.

When firefighters learned Jon was on heart medication, they provided some “nitro pills in case I needed something.” He said that Battalion Chief Thomas Maymon kept tenants informed, and after the fire was extinguished – although that proved problematic as it kept flaring up into the morning hours – had firefighters accompany tenants so “they could grab what they wanted.”

Joe Insana, who fortunately was able to return to his unit Sunday afternoon, is anxious to find the name of one policeman so he can personally thank him. He said the policeman, whose arms were covered by scratches by dawn, must have made 10 trips into the building to rescue pets.

Everybody seemed to know of the firefighter who had his gloved hand bitten by one of three snakes kept by one tenant. The snakes made it out.

The commanding officer at the scene, Battalion Chief James Kenney, said that at one point all of the city’s apparatus, plus three engines from Cranston and another from East Greenwich, responded to the fire. One Warwick firefighter was taken to Kent Hospital as a precautionary measure after a ceiling collapsed on him and for heat exhaustion. He was not injured.

Tenants essentially had the same story on how the fire started. The Nelsons said Burr told them that a wall of his unit felt hot as if the heat were on and there was a smell of burning at about 8 p.m. He investigated but found nothing. Then, after 2 a.m., he heard the glass to an outside door shatter. Burr’s unit is on the ground floor, and he assumed someone was trying to break in. Rather, he found heat from a fire that he believes came from an electrical box as the cause. That’s when he ran out to sound the alarm.

Kenney said the exterior electrical box was the apparent source of the fire.

With almost 30 years on the department, Kenney described the tactics in containing the blaze and bringing it under control as being as close to being textbook perfect as possible.

“That fire went incredibly well. That could have easily affected that full structure,” he said.

The fire was contained to one of the four, 12-unit sections that make up Building 1. Kenney said that while sections of the building are separated by firewalls, the fire was starting to spread to a second section. He said firefighters were able to “trench” the ceilings, thereby preventing the fire from spreading.

Kenney thinks the 12-unit section where the fire started would probably have to be razed. Twenty-four units of the building were not seriously impacted, with some smoke damage being the only issue. Most of those units were reoccupied by Sunday. The outcome for the other units was not clear as of press time.

The complex’s community room was used as shelter for displaced tenants the night of the fire, with Veterans High School being opened later for additional space. The Red Cross also responded, finding shelter for tenants, Kenney said.

Warwick North, the softball league that made it to the World Series, knew of at least two team members living in the complex. The league has started a drive for all those affected by the fire. (See a related story in today’s sports section for donation collection locations and additional details.)

Ferland Corporate offices in Pawtucket referred questions to personnel at Four Seasons. Personnel at Four Seasons office yesterday preferred not to answer questions until they addressed tenants yesterday at 3 p.m.

Among those waiting to learn whether they would be permitted to retrieve items from either their burned or water soaked units was Nancy Arpin. Arpin, who moved to Four Seasons after her home on Charles Street in Conimicut burned, shook her head. She said if there was one bright thing to the events of the past several days, it was that she was able to recover her working shoes. She said she put the shoes in the sun to dry, and out jumped a cricket.

“Now the cricket has a place and I don’t,” she said with a resigned smile.

Insana reported yesterday afternoon that Ferland offered to return security deposits and prorated the rent for tenants of the 24 units severely damaged or lost in the fire. He said tenants were not being allowed back in the building and that Serve Pro would salvage what they could.

Arpin called after the meeting and reported that thankfully Ferland had found her and her husband another apartment in Four Seasons complex. She said the company sought to place as many tenants either at Four Seasons or apartments elsewhere.

As for items recovered from the burned units, Aprin said tenants were told they would be placed in a pod on the property and they would have the opportunity to claim what was theirs. She said some tenants who didn’t have renters’ insurance were angered that Ferland didn’t plan on covering their losses and vowed to seek legal advice.

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