Two years ago, Ken Harris looked out his window and saw smoke and flames two floors below him.
“Let’s go,” he told his wife, Rita.
They climbed down 17 flights of stairs and made it out safely.
“We had to cover our faces as the smoke was coming up,” Rita Harris said.
They haven’t spent a night in the unit since, and the lack of fire sprinklers in the building has them worried about the potential for future fires.
Eight people were injured and 81-year-old Ora Chiles was killed by the fire on Jan. 25, 2023, at Harper Square Cooperative, 4850 S. Lake Park Ave., in Kenwood. About 140 residents were displaced and just began moving back into the building in December, the Harrises said.
Some residents gathered Tuesday to express their “anguish” over the past two years and concerns about moving back into a building the Northern Illinois Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board says isn’t fully equipped to handle another fire.
A spokesperson for Realty and Mortgage Co., which runs Harper Square, declined to comment.
High-rise buildings built after 1975 are required by law to be fully equipped with fire sprinklers, but there’s no requirement for older buildings to be outfitted with them. More than 600 high-rise residential buildings in Chicago aren’t fully protected by sprinklers, according to Erik Hoffer, executive director of the Northern Illinois Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board. In 2023, at least 17 fires broke out at these buildings.
Hoffer and the advisory board are pushing for local and state leaders to prioritize and fund sprinklers that could contain fires before they spread. In the Harper Square fire, flames and smoke climbed several stories on the exterior of the building.
“We have seen far too much death, more than we should ever see, especially when we have the answer,” Hoffer said. “Unfortunately, tragedy could strike again.”
The Harrises have lived in the unit for more than 40 years, and they were lucky enough to have a friend offer her home when they were displaced. But the home is in North Maywood, and it now takes Ken Harris an hour to get to work as a boat captain, and Rita Harris feels disconnected from her community.
Other residents have had to move several times over the past two years, they said, and some ran into insurance issues or other financial obstacles as a result of being displaced.
They’re ready to get back home, but the management company in charge of the building is keeping them in the dark, they said. The threat of another fire is in the back of their minds, but those concerns are often drowned out by the desire to get back to their home, where several of their family members live.
“I would hope that we’re doing everything we can, but I’m not giving up Harper Square,” Rita Harris said. “It affects you more than just to say there was a fire, it affects your mental state.”