Apartment Look

SHELBY TOWNSHIP (WXYZ) - An overnight fire had more than a dozen families scrambling to evacuate their homes in their pajamas. The fire chief says it was all a candle that caused the frightening moments. The neighbors who live in the complex spent most of their morning going back through these apartment units, trying to save whatever personal possessions they could. A lot of these units have smoke and water damage, if they're not completely destroyed. Neighbors shot this video of flames shooting through the roof of a building at the Pebble Creek Apartments in Shelby Twp. "To see the blaze like that, it was horrible, just horrible," Michele Turner lives inside this 12-unit building that was evacuated around 2:30 a.m. Monday. She says she woke up to the smell of smoke. "I ran to the patio to check, to see. When I looked I out I just saw the balcony blazing.” As she was getting her family out, other neighbors and police were banging on doors, waking up people who wer...

SHELBY TOWNSHIP , Mich. - A man left a candle burning when he fell asleep causing a fire Monday morning at the Pebble Creek Apartments in Shelby Township , the fire chief said.  About 12 units were impacted by the fire at the building on Pebble Creek near West Utica and Ryan roads.  "When we got here it was basically a wall of fire," said Shelby Township Fire Chief Jim Swinkowski . "There was a gentleman who had a candle burning, the candle fell of the table and started the blanket and a portion of the couch. He woke up to the smoke detector. And with smoke in there he got his son up. His son tried to drag the couch out of the apartment but was overcome. Once he opened the door wall and put all the fresh oxygen in there the fire really started going." Swinkowski said the man pulled his son out of the building and called 911. He said the fire spread up the outside of the building and onto the roof.  "When our crews got here just a couple minutes later, they j...

SHELBY TOWNSHIP (WWJ) — A single candle is believed to be the cause of a fire which damaged about a dozen apartments in Shelby Township . Firefighters believe a candle tipped over while a resident in the Pebble Creek Apartments slept and burned for a while before the resident woke up to a smoldering scene. Shelby Fire Chief Jim Swinkowski says the man and his son tried to move the burning couch out of the apartment but couldn’t do it. “Him and his son tried to get the couch out — unable to because of the smoke — so they got out called us, and by the time our first engine got here from like a mile and a half away – next thing you know the fire was through the apartment, through the roof and shooting up in the air,” said Swinkowski. A total of 10 units in the complex were damaged — putting dozens of people scurrying for safety and now alternative housing. Nieghbor Lonnie O’Bryant lives next door to where the fire started: “There are a lot of innocent people who had nothing to do with...