Twelve families were left homeless by an early morning fire in their Carpentersville apartment building that caused about $200,000 in damage, fire officials said.
Firefighters arrived at 700 Alma Court at 4:24 a.m. Monday to find heavy smoke and fire coming from a second-floor window on the east side of the 12-unit building, according to a news release.
The blaze started in a second-floor unit bedroom and spread through the building, forcing all residents to be evacuated by Carpentersville firefighters, the release said. It was brought under control within an hour with help from neighboring fire departments, officials said.
On late Monday morning, red tape surrounded the entire building and crews were doing cleanup and boarding up windows. All utilities were turned off.
Leticia Garcia was waiting outside for permission to grab items from her home, including a phone number for her insurance company. She has renter’s insurance but the paperwork was inside the apartment where she’s lived for two years, she said.
“We don’t know where we are going to go,” said Garcia, who shared the unit with her husband, Miguel Ramirez, and their dog Pantero. “We don’t know how long this will go on.”
The American Red Cross provided a gift card for a hotel stay, but beyond that Garcia had no idea how long they’d be required to be out of the building or how much access they might have to their belongings.
Meadowdale Apartments management relocated some families to other units within the apartment complex. However, Garcia and Ramirez didn’t get one because there weren’t a lot of apartments available, she said.
Sandra Rubio woke up Monday morning to the smell of burning plastic and found smoke filling her living room, she said. At about the same time, firefighters knocked on her door and told her to evacuate.
“It was very scary, very emotional,” Rubio said of the experience.
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She and her roommate were lucky because they were able to secure an apartment in the same complex and wouldn’t have to find housing elsewhere, she said.
“We have a place to sleep tonight,” she said. But she’s worried that she might need to move, which could be a problem given the rising cost of rent, she said. She has lived on Alma Court for three years.
Firefighters said no injuries were reported. No information on a cause of the fire was released.
Among the fire departments that assisted with the fire were East Dundee, West Dundee, Elgin, Algonquin, Pingree Grove, Hoffman Estates and Hanover Township as well as the Rutland Dundee and Barrington Countryside fire protection districts.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.