Milwaukee investigators don't rule out possibility deadly fire was set intentionally

Yahoo

14-05-2025

Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski is not ruling out the possibility that the Mother's Day apartment fire that killed five people could have been intentionally set.
He said the investigation into the fire — one of the deadliest in Milwaukee in decades — was continuing May 13 with the help of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but he could not yet identify an exact cause. The May 11 fire displaced 114 residents and also left at least six people hospitalized.
"The potential for an intentional act cannot be ruled out," Lipski said at a news conference May 13.
But Lipski and others declined to provide much additional information about the blaze, such as the condition of the injured victims or whether police had identified any suspects. The building at 2725 W. Highland Blvd. is large, Lipski said, and the search for evidence of the cause of the fire is a "painstaking process."
"We are necessarily isolating information so that we don't send an investigation down the wrong road," he said. "It's such a huge loss of life, it's just critical to get it right."
More: Speaker Robin Vos says lawmakers unlikely to require fire sprinklers after fire that killed 5
Building owner Geraldine Robinson told the Journal Sentinel she heard an accelerant was thrown in an apartment shared by a boyfriend and a girlfriend. Lipski said he could not confirm accelerant was used without sending samples to a lab.
"Until we rule out a whole bunch of stuff ... we cannot state with certainty one thing or the other," Lipski said.
Firefighters rescued 48 residents using ladders and dragged out six others. Witnesses described tenants jumping from higher floors to the ground below and using the balconies to climb down. One man said the smoke was so dark and thick he couldn't see his hand in front of his face.
Nearly 150 firefighters responded as part of a five-alarm response, including from West Allis and Wauwatosa. Trucks arrived within three minutes of the first 911 call, Lipski said. He described a "horrible" situation as the fire quickly spread across the building and vertically between its four stories, as well as into stairwells that firefighters needed to use to rescue people.
As of the morning of May 13, one person was in critical condition, the fire department said in a news release. The injured victims ranged in age from 1 to 76 years old.
Lipski said he did not believe anyone had been arrested in the fire.
Milwaukee Police Capt. David Anderson declined to comment on the status of the investigation, saying, "There's stuff we're looking into. We have not made any determination." In addition to the ATF, police are working with the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation.
The building did not have sprinklers or stand pipes, which Lipski has called out as a reason the fire was so deadly. It was not required to have sprinklers because it was built before 1974 and was "grandfathered" into the building code. The building did have smoke alarms, he said, and they could be heard as firefighters responded to the scene.
As a point of comparison, Lipski said firefighters responded to a fire in a building at Milwaukee Area Technical College on May 13 and it was extinguished by sprinklers by the time they arrived.
'I cannot emphasize with enough force the necessity to have sprinklers,' he said. 'I don't stand before you to profess to have all the answers for how it will get done, but I am telling you we don't have this loss of life, the severity of injuries, this amount of property damage if that building has sprinklers.'
Alderman Bob Bauman, who represents the area where the apartment is, said he introduced a communication file for a city committee on May 28 to learn more about buildings that pre-date building code requirements. Changing building code is outside of the city's abilities and requires state changes, he said.
The city's legislative package, a set of issues it asks its lobbyists to advocate for at the state Legislature, includes advocating for requiring sprinklers in new apartment construction regardless of size, Bauman said.
'We hope to get to the bottom of what the history is … and what can be done to make sure things like this do not happen again,' he said.
The city is currently analyzing the number of buildings that pre-date building code and would have the figure for that meeting, said Jezamil Arroyo-Vega, a commissioner at the city's Department of Neighborhood Services.
Lipski said about six years ago, he surveyed all high-rise buildings in the city, and about 70% of residential high-rises were built before 1974, "so it was dealer's choice if anyone put sprinklers in."
'We're still living with these buildings right now,' Lipski said. 'We're dying in some of the buildings."
The victims of the fire include Torrell D. Coleman, 40; Verna Richards, 62; Mark A. Chaffin, 76; Maureen Green, 67, and one unidentified woman, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office.
So far this year, six people have died in fires in Milwaukee, according to the Milwaukee Fire Department. Last year, four died. There were 12 fire deaths in 2022, and 12 in 2021.
Sophie Carson is a general assignment reporter who reports on religion and faith, immigrants and refugees and more. Contact her at [e-mail] or 920-323-5758. David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at [e-mail].
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee chief not ruling out chance fatal fire was set intentionally