By Frank Main
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All rights reserved
CHICAGO — An 87-year-old woman who died in a stairwell of a Lincoln Park apartment building might have survived if she had stayed in her condominium during a fire emergency, officials said Saturday.
Asli Azizi was found Friday evening in the 12th floor of the stairwell in the 491-unit building at 2626 N. Lakeview. Her condo was on the 13th floor, and the fire started in a unit on the 26th floor of the 44-floor building, officials said.
Azizi was not at risk from smoke or fire, said Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Fire Department. She died of a heart attack caused by the stress from the fire, the Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled. Someone in the building tried CPR on Azizi with a defibrillator before firefighters arrived, Langford said.
Second victim
A man’s body was discovered in the 26th-floor apartment where the fire started about 6:15 p.m. Friday, officials said. They believe the man is Peter F. Zanet, 81, but were awaiting a conclusive identification Saturday.
Investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the fire Saturday afternoon, Langford said. He said most residents stayed in their condos, which the department recommends unless a unit is filling with smoke or catching fire.
“We tell them to stay in the apartment, put a towel down to block the smoke and if they’re concerned, call 911,” Langford said. “If they go into the stairwell and get into trouble, we don’t know where they are.”
Firefighters evacuated the two floors above the fire floor, the fire floor itself and the floor below it, he said. The fire did not spread beyond the one unit and was put out in about 20 minutes, officials said.
One woman made a 911 call from a stairwell saying she was going to the roof because of smoke in the stairwell, Langford said. A department helicopter pilot spotted at least 10 people on the roof. Firefighters went to escort them to safety.
Firefighters searched all the building’s stairways — a procedure established after six people died of smoke inhalation in the stairwells of 69 W. Washington in 2003. About 150 firefighters responded to the fire.
“Everyone did a magnificent job — the firefighters and our employees really stepped up,” said Eugene Fisher, the condo association president.
The building does not have sprinklers; it was built before a 1975 ordinance requiring them in buildings more than 80 feet tall. But a public address system will have to be installed by 2012 because of a 2004 fire safety ordinance, Fisher said.