No one hurt in smoky fire

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Firefighters stand outside an apartment building at The Preserves at Cress Creek in Naperville following a fire at the apartment complex Monday night. | Bill Bird~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 23, 2012 8:11AM

A fire apparently sparked by cooking oil simmering atop a kitchen stove filled the top-floor hallway with smoke but caused no injuries Monday night in a seven-story apartment complex on Naperville’s northwest side.

Tenants of as many as five seventh floor units stuffed towels into the spaces around their doorways rather than venture out into the smoky hallway at The Preserves at Cress Creek apartment complex, 799 Royal St. George Drive, Naperville Fire Department Capt. Rick Zakaras said at the scene.

Fire Capt. Paul Martin added a Naperville police officer was “medically evaulated” outside the complex after having gone to the seventh floor. The officer signed a release and declined to be taken to a hospital for observation or treatment, Martin said.

The blaze erupted about 9:46 p.m. in Apartment No. 714, Martin said. Part of the kitchen caught fire after a pan or pot of vegetable oil on the stove apparently spilled onto the burner beneath it, and then spread when the resident tried to put out the flames, Martin said.

Tenants of four or five of the top-floor units who were home at the time “remained in their apartments and put towels under their doorways and didn’t go out in the hall,” Zakaras said.

“It was thick,” Martin said of the smoke. “You couldn’t see down the hallway or see other people.”

Twenty-six firefighters and paramedics were sent to the complex in 11 emergency vehicles, Martin said. The fire was extinguished in 11 minutes, at 9:57 p.m., he said.

Many tenants heeded the alarms that sounded throughout the building and made their way outside during the fire. Others — apparently jaded by the false alarms of the past — stayed inside their apartments.

Martin said the complex’s sprinkler system did not activate because the flames were confined to Apartment 714. He estimated the damage to that unit and its contents as being between $5,000 and $10,000.