Residents Return To Rebuilt Senior Apartment Complex 6 Months After Deadly Fire

ALLEN PARK (WWJ) -- It was a bittersweet return home for the last of more than 60 residents of an Allen Park senior citizen complex on Friday, which suffered severe fire damage last September that resulted in one death.

Now rebuilt better than new, the Leo Paluch Apartments was the site of a luncheon reunion for Janette Bazinet and other residents.

"I'm just glad to see this day," Bazinet said. "I'm very emotional about it and I've had to go around the whole room to say hi to everybody and make sure that they're okay."

Allen Park Fire Chief Douglass LaFond told WWJ Newsradio 950's Jon Hewett that the re-build allowed for the installation of a new "state-of-the-art" fire and CO2 warning system in the building.

"This system is really something," LaFond said. "We tested it the other day and it worked flawlessly. It calls the fire department, it calls maintenance -- before it ever got to the point where it would be harmful to them, it would notify all of us and we can come rectify the situation."

LaFond said that the fire was started by an oxygen generating device owned by one of the residents.

"The whole building goes into alarm mode and if you're in this building you will know that there's a fire alarm going off," LaFond said.