Fire Guts Illegal Rooming House on Decatur By JORDAN MOSS Because it was the middle of the day and people were out of the house, 3140 Decatur Ave., disaster was avoided. "If this had happened in the middle of the night, there would be like 10 people dead," said Michael O'Reilly, who was one of several tenants in the house.
Rivera said he was going to renovate the house and make it into legal apartments. "I didn't want to evict anybody," he said. "They're good people." Other than some slight damage to the siding of the house next door, none of the other homes in the row of five were harmed. "It's a good thing they got here in time, or else the fire would have spread to all these houses," said John Rodriguez, who lives in a house two doors down from the fire. According to the Fire Department, the fire call came in at 11:11 a.m. and the second alarm came in at 11:19 a.m. The fire was under control by 12:12 p.m. All of the 10 firefighters who sustained minor injuries were taken to Jacobi Hospital. The cause of the fire was still under investigation at press time. Deputy Chief Patrick McKnight of the 7th Division said the fire began in the basement. Though he said he couldn't say whether the apparent use of the home as an SRO was illegal, he said "generally speaking" that such configurations were illegal. Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the Buildings Department said the house is legally a two- family house and was issued a vacate order on March 27, 2002. Fink did not get back to the Norwood News before press time as to why the premises was not vacated. She did say, however, that illegally-constructed properties are only issued vacate orders when they are deemed unsafe. "Being illegal or having been constructed illegally is not enough to automatically require a 'vacate,'" Fink said. "This one had a 'vacate.'"
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A two-alarm fire
that began in the basement in the late morning of Sept. 30 gutted a house
on Decatur Avenue in Norwood. At least 10 fire trucks responded and 10
firefighters sustained minor injuries.
The three-story house was operating as a rooming house. Gilbert Rivera,
one of the owners of the house, conceded that it was essentially an
illegal SRO (single room occupancy), but he said he bought it recently and
was trying to convert it. "It was an SRO when we bought it," he said. "I
was getting people out little by little."