Community Corner

Smoking In Bed With Oxygen Tank May Be Fire Cause

Chesterfield apartment fire makes 21 people homeless, and they've heard plenty of stories about the cause.

A 2-alarm fire at Chesterfield's Schoettler Village apartments Friday may have been started by someone smoking in bed with bottled oxygen nearby, other residents said Monday.

At the same time, apartment management told Chesterfield Patch that no cause of the fire was yet determined.

Neither have Monarch Fire Protection District officials revealed a cause of the fire. Chesterfield Patch will be checking back with Monarch Fire PD.

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Officials have confirmed the fire started on a ground level apartment of the 10-unit building, and several residents Monday pointed out the same apartment saying a man with oxygen had lived there.

The residents were at the building retrieving belongings.

Find out what's happening in Chesterfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Windows were boarded up on the entire building. There did not appear to be power. Two generators were roaring outside, with wires running into the building's front door.

Cleaning and restoring trucks were parked out front, working on apartments with doors off the hinges. Fire officials said they broke into the apartments at 2 a.m. Friday, to evacuate residents.

Some residents said they had agreed to relocate to apartments within the same complex. But other residents said the rent went up $300 on the same-sized apartment, and rejected the offer.

Another pair of residents of the burned building said they did not hear any smoke or fire alarms at the time of the fire, despite what they described as a very fast escalation of the fire.

Monarch Fire officials said the emergency began with an ambulance call to the one apartment, but when they arrived it was engulfed in flames. The resident was hospitalized with burns and smoke inhalation.

Firefighters evacuated all 21 people from the building, and from second- and third-story balconies, fire officials said.

The building is three stories tall in the back, and just a sidewalk's width from a neighboring building, and surrounded by trees.

Management said they were still assessing the best way to proceed with the burned building on Wishwood Court. Typically that would include gutting it, tear down, restore what's left, among other options.

Schoettler Village Apartments was one of the earlier complexes to go up in modern Chesterfield, built in the mid-1970s.


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