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Morning fire causes damage at Detroit apartment building

An investigation continues after a morning fire at an apartment building in Detroit on Saturday.

The Detroit Fire Department said it happened around 10:30 a.m. on John R near Woodward and Alfred Street, about a block away from Little Caesars Arena. The department believes the fire started on the top floor as an accident from a heating unit.

Shannon Howell lives in the building, right under the unit where the fire started.

“I was leaving out in the hallway to go into my other unit and my neighbor came down said he needed a fire extinguisher,” Howell said. “His furnace was on fire up there and he couldn’t get back up because it was too smokey.”

Ronald Hill and his family were staying in an Airbnb in the building.

“We were about to eat some breakfast,” Hill said. “They were cooking and we heard the fire trucks pulling up and then my youngest, Junior, he came out and he said the fire trucks were coming here. “We heard like a smoke detector going on and that was that was enough to say ‘OK, everybody has time.’ And as we were coming out, we were helping other people making sure they were getting out too.”

DFD said the fire damage was contained to the top floor, but people inside the building say you can see water damage from as far down as the third floor.

American Red Cross was on scene helping people from five different units in the building.


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