Collapse risk slows fire probe
The Westminster apartment complex blaze burned 69 units, killed two and injured nine more
The Westminster apartment complex that burned Sunday is so unstable that fire investigators were unable to enter it Monday as they try to learn what caused the fire that killed two people and hospitalized nine more.
Meanwhile, authorities are searching for four juveniles who witnesses said used fire extinguishers to try and put out the fire.
“We do not think these individuals are responsible for starting the fire,” Westminster Police Investigator Cheri Spottke said.
The fire burned more than half of the 69 units in Building E of the Westbury Apartments in the 1500 block of West 115th Avenue. Due to the age of the building — its occupation certificate was issued in 1974 — it did not have fire safety sprinklers. New construction requires sprinklers that are in compliance with the International Fire Code.
The identities of the two dead have yet to released by the Adams County Coroner’s Office. The condition of the nine who were hospitalized were not released but the one remaining resident who had been unaccounted for was found unharmed, according to a statement released by Westminster Fire.
Among the residents in the complex was John Shelby Wilson, 31, who described what he witnessed as “insanity.”
Wilson was about to go to bed when he heard screams. At first, he thought it was a fight, “but then I heard screaming that was more than a normal argument.”
Smelling smoke, he and a neighbor ran outside where they were hit by a heat wave from the flames as the fire spread through the apartment complex.
Wilson said he and a group of onlookers joined police in breaking windows to get residents out of their first-floor apartments.
Cries from distressed residents drew Wilson and two others to the backside of the building where they made the instinctive decision to run into the building. The men wrapped their watersoaked shirts around their mouths to filter the smoke.
“A lot of us weren’t really thinking about ourselves,” Wilson said. “We just kind of went for it. We didn’t want other people to be hurt. We didn’t want to be bystanders.”
Wilson said he helped evacuate and direct residents from four second-floor apartments, including some using walkers and wheelchairs, to the stairwell on the south side of the building. The impromptu group of rescuers evacuated more people on the third floor as the fire closed in around them, but fire officials said they discourage people running into burning buildings.
“We don’t encourage it because it’s very dangerous,” Westminster Fire department spokesman Jeromy Hill said. “We advise people to wait because we have the proper equipment, but if he got people out that definitely made a difference in people’s lives.”
Donations to those who lost their belongings in the fire can be made to the American Red Cross or Westminster Firefighter’s Burn Victims Benefit Fund.