Residents assess damage caused by Detroit fires

9/09/2010 01:10:07 PM

DETROIT – Toni Booker considered herself fortunate on Thursday as she inspected the damage to her wooden bungalow caused by urban wildfires that swept through Detroit this week, destroying dozens of homes.

Despite being in the middle of one of Tuesday night's wind-fed fires, her home escaped the blazes with only a partially charred roof and heat-warped siding.

"I just put new windows in, and some more work was going to be done," said Booker, a retired auto worker who was renting the home to a woman and her grandson at the time of the fire. No one was injured. "I'm trying to stick it out in Detroit."

At least 85 structures, some of them abandoned, were destroyed or scorched as flames from Tuesday's fires jumped from rooftop to rooftop, swelled by winds of up to 50 mph. The fires swept though several neighborhoods, including some that were well-tended and others filled with deteriorating vacant houses and weed-filled lots.

No injuries were reported, but Detroit Fire Commissioner James Mack has said it was the worst spate of fires since the 1980s, when firefighters regularly battled hundreds of arsons on the night before Halloween.

Fire officials have said fires in eight parts of the city likely were caused by downed power lines, while two others were believed to be arson. On Thursday, they were trying to determine the extent of the damage.

Data from firefighters who battled the fires was being collected. It is unclear how many of the 85 structures were occupied homes, vacant dwellings or garages, community relations Chief Katrina Butler said.

Detroit is a city beset with its share of urban troubles. Nearly a third of working age adults are jobless. Foreclosure rates are high and so is crime. The city has wrestled for years with blighted neighborhoods filled with abandoned and ramshackle houses and trash-filled vacant lots overgrown with weeds as tall as people.

Though the number of homes that burned in Tuesday's fires was large, on average about 35 homes — mostly abandoned — catch on fire daily in Detroit. On Thursday, firefighters battled several blazes throughout the city, though officials said they would not know the exact number for a few days.

Even before this week's fires, some streets, like the one that Booker's house is on the east side of the city, had more vacant houses and empty lots than occupied homes.

About 33,000 vacant houses are believed to be in the city. Mayor Dave Bing has promised to tear down 3,000 this year and the same number in 2011.

Only three abandoned houses that burned Tuesday were on the list of structures slated for demolition this year.

Booker hopes the now-burned house just to the east of her house and the half-dozen to the west will be torn down soon.

"I was here when all the houses were lived in. This was the first house I bought," she said. "I just want to know, will they leave it like this?"