The Failures Before the Fires

 

By Madison Hopkins, BGA, and Cecilia Reyes, Chicago Tribune 

 Apr 23, 2021 6:00 AM

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This project is a collaboration between the Better Government Association and the Chicago Tribune

The fire that killed four of Shamaya Coleman’s children raced through their South Side building within minutes. But it was a tragedy years in the making.

It began before the fire started one floor below, in an apartment without working smoke detectors. It was already in motion before the flames spread through a broken door and up the stairs through darkened hallways.

In fact, the tragedy began long before the single mother moved her family into the modest one-bedroom home.

They were, like so many families, hoping for better days. They were also completely unaware the city had known for years the building was a firetrap.

Shamaya Coleman inside her home in Chicago’s East Chatham neighborhood in August. Four of her children were killed in 2014 in an apartment fire in the Roseland neighborhood. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

City building inspectors had visited the 18-unit courtyard complex in Roseland more than two dozen times in the five years before the blaze, documenting more than 150 code violations. Just six months before the fire, inspectors once again found broken doors and missing smoke detectors — among other serious fire safety issues.

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