By Sharif Durhams
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MILWAUKEE — Firefighters are investigating a blaze at a home on the north side of Milwaukee that killed a man Saturday.
The Milwaukee Fire Department received a call about a fire at a two-story house, 628 W. Clarke St., about 1 p.m., according to fire officials. Firefighters arrived three minutes after they were called and found an unresponsive man in a second-floor bedroom.
Paramedics took the man to Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital Milwaukee, where he died of smoke inhalation, according to the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Milwaukee’s Fire Investigation Task Force was examining the fire scene Saturday. There were no working smoke detectors in the home, according to the Fire Department.
Firefighters had ripped out a large section of the roof to attack the fire. The house was uninhabitable, and downstairs residents were carting out groceries they’d just purchased to take elsewhere.
The death was the second fire death in Milwaukee in 2010. The city had six fire deaths in each of the last two years, which is tied for the second-lowest death toll in 52 years.
The 2008-'09 figure was the lowest two-year total in that period. The lowest fire death toll was four in 1998; six people each also died in fires during 1995 and 2002. Figures are incomplete before 1957, officials have said.
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