Cahokia Heights apartment building catches fire for second time over weekend
Firefighters from several metro-east departments put out a fire at a Cahokia Heights apartment building on Saturday morning, but the building erupted in flames again on Sunday evening.
It was upsetting for tenant Hannah White. Her two-bedroom unit at Cottonwood Park Apartments already had suffered significant smoke and water damage.
“There are a lot of flames,” she said in a weary voice about 6:30 p.m. Sunday. “It looks pretty bad.”
Cottonwood Park is a complex with 88 units in 11 buildings off Mississippi Avenue. The building that caught fire had five out of eight units occupied by nine tenants, including three children.
White, a housekeeping supervisor, lived in a downstairs unit with her 11-year-old son, A’Fontai Stringer.
They were in the process of moving into another Cottonwood unit when White heard that their former building was on fire again about 6 p.m. Sunday. She and other tenants watched fire trucks return and firefighters spray more water.
“There were about 40 people watching,” White said.
The first fire at the apartment building started about 7 a.m. Saturday in the kitchen of an upstairs unit, where a man was cooking breakfast and “something didn’t go right,” according to White.
She called 911, got dressed and began warning other residents, including an elderly neighbor, to get out of the building.
Volunteer firefighters from Cahokia, Columbia, Church Road, Alorton, Camp Jackson, Prairie Du Pont, Dupo and Millstadt showed up to put out the fire, according to the Cahokia Volunteer Fire Department Facebook page.
Cahokia Chief Stephen Robbins couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday. He told KSDK on Saturday that the first fire was likely caused by cooking in the upstairs unit. It spread along the roof in the attic.
Everyone got out of the apartments, and no one was injured, Robbins said of the first fire.
“There were smoke detectors. We did hear them going off throughout the building.”
