ST. LOUIS — Firefighters have extinguished a fire that engulfed one unit in a two-story apartment building in St. Louis, the city's fire department said.
The fire, which ignited at an apartment building near the intersection of North Broadway and Gimblin Street in the city's Baden neighborhood, left one person dead, investigators said. The department's fire investigators and the St. Louis Regional Bomb and Arson team are surveying the scene.
"It appears to be accidental in nature. The occupant may have been cooking," Captain Garon Mosby with the City of St. Louis Fire Department tells 5 On Your Side.
Family members told 5 On Your Side the man who died is William Green. They said he had only lived in the apartment on North Broadway for about year.
"It was heated, so this isn't a case of someone using the stove to heat the space, that doesn't appear to be apparent," explains Mosby, "both utilities were out to actually cut power and natural gas to the unit so that's not the case here."
Fire crews were not able to find working smoke alarms in the apartment. Mosby says crews did not hear any activated smoke alarms when arriving on the scene. As of his interview around 12 p.m. on Friday, Mosby reports, "we have not been able to locate any smoke alarms, functioning or not."
The City of St. Louis Fire Department can help with installing fire alarms. "If you need a smoke alarm and you live in the City of St. Louis we'll come out and install them free of charge," urges Mosby, "if you don't live in the city, contact your local fire department or the American Red Cross, and it's something we can easily get taken care of."
The apartments on North Broadway had boarded-up windows prior to the firefighting activity of the day. Mosby says, "that is the normal state of affairs. I'm not sure why they are boarded up, it could be a vacant unit, maybe the owner wants to keep folks out."
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