By LORRAINE SWANSON
Editor
Firefighters responded to a fire at Lawrence House, 1020 W. Lawrence, on Tuesday afternoon. The fire was quickly struck out but left a man critically injured with smoke inhalation and second degree burns.
A fire in the seventh-floor unit in an Uptown SRO left one man injured with second-degree burns on Tuesday, and chasing dozens of other residents out of their apartments outside into a cold afternoon drizzle.
Chicago Fire Department spokesman Quentin Curtis said that the fire broke out around 3 p.m. and was extinguished at 3:20 p.m. at the Lawrence House Retirement Hotel at 1020 W. Lawrence.
Curtis said that the fire was contained to one unit inside the 12-story building. Firefighters from Company 22 rescued a male victim from unit 718, who was transported to Weiss Memorial Hospital in critical condition suffering from smoke inhalation and second degree burns to the lower half of his body.
Firefighters evacuated residents on the seventh floor, and from the fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth floors of 12-story building, sending many residents out coatless in a cold afternoon drizzle.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Many residents standing on the sidewalk in front of Lawrence House told Lake Effect News that the building’s alarm system did not go off during the fire. Some residents said they didn’t know there was a fire until they heard the fire trucks pulling up.
“The alarm did not go off,” Jeff Harvey said, a resident of the seventh floor at Lawrence House.
Worried about his apartment which is next door to unit 718 where the fire broke out., Harvey said he heard “a fuse blow” and then smelled smoke. He called downstairs to let security know that he smelled smoke.
Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) as she was seen leaving Lawrence House on Tuesday afternoon where a fire broke out in a seventh-floor unit. Informed that fire officials said the building's alarm system was not working, Shiller responded that she was still trying to gather information.
Lawrence House security guards and firefighters went upstairs to the seventh floor to investigate. Harvey said he was standing with them when firefighters opened the door to unity 718.
“They were knocking on doors looking for the fire,” Harvey said. “When they opened the door [at unit 718], smoke came pouring out.”
Firefighters and security started evacuating residents from the building.
A woman named Peggy, who did not want to give her last name, said that she was lying down in her tenth floor apartment and was unaware that there was a fire in the building.
“My daughter called me,” Peggy said, whose daughter lives in another unit inside the building. “There was no alarm.”
Evacuated residents expressed anger that no alarm had sounded, warning them that there was a fire inside the building.
“I’ve heard the alarm go off before but there was no fire,” Harvey said. “Someone might have pulled the alarm. The alarm was not pulled in this case. It has to be some kind of negligence there.”
Deputy Chief Patrick Malone of the 2nd District confirmed that building’s fire alarm system was not working in Tuesday’s fire.
“There is evidence that there may have one time been fire alarms in the ceiling on this particular floor, but there is none at the present time,” Malone said. “The alarm system in the downstairs lobby area was not working.”
Residents wait to be let back into their apartments at Lawrence House after a fire on Tuesday afternoon.
Malone said he did not yet know if there was a working smoke detector inside the unit where the fire broke out.
Malone said Chicago fire marshals would determine if the building was in violation of city fire codes for not having working fire alarm system.
“Certainly [building management] should have been working on that,” the deputy fire chief added.
Firefighters used a thermal imaging camera to locate the victim, who was found lying on the floor inside his unit.
Damage from the fire was contained to the one seventh-floor unit, and smoke did not reach other parts of the building.
Rob Vec, a seventh-floor resident of Lawrence House said he was coming back from 7-Eleven when he saw all of the fire equipment outside of the building. He said the unit where the fire occurred was shared by two brothers.
Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) and chief of staff Denice Davis arrived on the scene after the fire had been struck. Both went into the building to talk to firefighters.
Informed by Lake Effect News as she was leaving Lawrence House that the building’s fire alarm system was not working, Shiller said, “I’m still finding out what’s going on.”
Lawrence House fire, 1020 W. Lawrence Ave., Tuesday, March 9.
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By making that call to the front desk, Jeff Harvey saved lives and played a major part in preventing what could have been a catastrophe.
More than a few people should be thanking this man, tonight.
Let’s all wait and see how this is handled. This is a privately owned building, against which Shiller and ONE have been working (with protest marches, tenant meetings, TIF funding inquiries) to force the owner to sell or renovate into permanent low income housing.
A similar high rise fire occurred in Lakeview at 810 West Grace, a permanent low-income Section-8-tenant-only coop. At that fire, no fire alarm sounded either.
Will the city and Alderman Shiller stomp down on this Lawrence House owner for not having a working fire alarm when 810 West Grace –to this day 3 years and many 311 requests later —still has wooden boardups instead of windows in violation of the building and fire codes? Will the Lawrence House be accessed draconian fines, while 810 West Grace received none?
The web shows Shiller’s plan for a taxpayer-funded $25,000,000 renovation of 810 West Grace coop, a converted HUD building that is 100% privately owned by its tenants and supposedly off the taxpayer’s dole. Shiller and ONE are on record for wanting to use TIF funds to take over the Lawrence House. Given that they want to force the Lawrence House owner out, will after fire 46th Ward building and fire code enforcement be as lenient at the Lawrence House as it has been at 810 West Grace?
Building does have a working fire alarm but no-one in the building tripped the fire pull stations located by every single stairwell door on each floor. too bad tenants in this building like to play with this devices and think is funny but when the real thing happens they forget what they are for!!!
NN,
First, I am glad that residents at Lawrence House are okay. If not for the alert actions of your neighbor (I’m assuming that you live at Somerset) Jeff Harvey, who called building security to let them know he smelled smoke, the fire could have been a lot worse and more people injured or possibly killed.
Residents did mention to me (quoted in the story) that the fire alarms had been in the past as a prank.
However, the deputy fire chief did confirm evidence that the fire alarm system was not working during yesterday’s fire, and the CFD fire bureau would be investigating further for possible code violations, also quoted in the story.