DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - Several Decatur families are displaced and looking for a new place to call home after a fire at an apartment building Monday.
"It was in a storage room,” Peter Scott, who lived in the apartments, said. “It was an electrical fire. It was dead-bolted shut and they had to break into it."
The building was determined unsafe to live in by the city of Decatur after an inspector found code violations.
Scott has called the apartments near North and College home for eight years. When the fire broke out, he grabbed his fire extinguisher and worked to put the fire out as his neighbors evacuated. Signs on the doors of the building will keep them from returning.
“This is not a normal situation,” Scott said. “I have never had a fire situation."
The city declared the building unsafe because of an electrical issue and because of a basement apartment not having an egress window. The city of Decatur said Tuesday the likelihood of the building ever being inspected was not high. The city does not require inspections.
“It is a tough situation,” Scott said. “This is a really sad situation but this life in the real world, not TV.”
The Decatur Fire Department said it does not routinely do inspections of apartment complexes unless there is a complaint. The city said that will be changing. Members of city council approved funds for a rental inspection program for the 2020 budget. Details of that program are still being worked out.
For more on WAND-TV's reporting on this fire, click here.
