Chloe Fasen, 15, was struggling to sleep at about 2 a.m. Sunday when she heard shouting outside the Westminster apartment she shared with her mother and two siblings.
She stepped onto the apartment’s balcony and heard someone scream, “Help me. I’m trapped. The building’s on fire.”
Chloe bolted inside and woke her mother, Danielle Fasen, who ran to check the knob on the front door.
It was cool to the touch.
She opened the door and the apartment began to fill with black smoke. She couldn’t see the hallway and knew they couldn’t take the stairs.
The Fasens lived on the third floor of Building E in the Westbury Apartments located in the 1500 block of West 115th Avenue. A fire started in their building shortly after 2 a.m. and quickly spread through more than half of the 69 units. It killed two people and sent nine others to area hospitals. Authorities said some of the injuries are serious but details were not available Sunday night.
Fasen and her three children covered their mouths with wet washcloths and got low to the ground. Smoke poured into the apartment. It became difficult to breathe.
She pushed her kids onto the balcony and stared at the concrete parking lot 30 feet below.
Two men shouted at the family to jump.
Danielle Fasen’s mind went to all the hours she’d spent watching cheerleading competitions. She said she remembered the way cheerleaders fall into the arms of their teammates as she cradled 7-year-old Abi like a baby and leaned over the railing. Then, she let go.
“It amazes me that I didn’t even think,” Fasen said. “It was all movement and instinct.”
Abi dropped safely into the locked arms of two men just as firefighters arrived with a ladder.
The Westminster Fire Department said the building was “fully involved with fire” by the time its crews arrived at about 2:20 a.m. Several people, according to the department, tried to escape by jumping from second- and third-story patios and windows.
“We heard people screaming and smelled smoke,” Stefanie Rodriquez said.
She ran outside of her building, which is across the parking lot, and saw Building E engulfed in flames.
“I heard some guy yelling, ‘I have kids up here, help us,'” Rodriquez said.
Then, she spotted an older woman.
“She had jumped from the second story,” Rodriquez said. “She was crying uncontrollably and holding her side.”
Rodriquez helped her across the parking lot and loaded her into an ambulance.
“People were just trapped. It went from a drip to a tsunami like that,” Westbury Apartment resident Jake Hughes said as he snapped his fingers.
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He saw a group of young men, about four of them, try to beat back the flames with fire extinguishers. One man doused himself with water before running into the building, trying to kick open doors.
Westminster fire officials said authorities had accounted for all but one resident by Sunday afternoon. The building had several elderly and disabled residents.
Quincy Wise, who lives in a nearby building in the complex, rescued a double amputee from her first-floor apartment.
Wise is a plumber by trade. He told The Denver Post it was instinct that pushed him into the building.
“I just thought I would want someone to do the same for me,” Wise said.
He’s also one half of the team that caught Abi Fasen.
“I knew I was going to catch her,” Wise said. “I wasn’t going to let her fall.”
Wise held Abi until her sister climbed down the ladder. He walked them away from the building and then went to get their mother.
“You just got to look at it like this could have been my building,” Wise said.
The Fasen family is staying at a hotel Sunday. About 30 people were at an American Red Cross shelter at Silver Hills Middle School Sunday afternoon, but the shelter was closed by the evening.
Danielle Fasen’s not sure what happens next. She, like many at the complex, didn’t have renter’s insurance.
The Fasens lost everything, but even residents whose apartments sustained minor damage can’t return.
The fire destroyed a large section of the roof, and entire apartments appeared to have collapsed into the floors beneath them. Windows throughout the building were broken, and a river of gray water and debris poured into the grass and down the sidewalks. First-floor apartments that didn’t burn were filled with several inches of water.
At the scene, smoke detectors still squealed Sunday evening as cleanup contractors worked around the burned-out building and erected fences because fire officials said the structure was not safe.
There were no fire safety sprinklers in the Westbury Apartments complex. Residents complained, saying they didn’t think this was fair.
Fire department officials at the scene confirmed it. “They were not required when the apartments were built,” Westminster Fire Department spokesman Jeromy Hill said. “So it was not illegal.”
The cause of the fire hadn’t been determined. “There is nothing concrete,” Hill said. “There are multiple interviews happening of residents in the area.”
“It is not likely that investigation teams will be able to move to the interior of the building until (Monday) at the earliest,” according to Westminster Fire.
Firefighters hung around the edges of the building trying to lure surviving animals with treats. They successfully recused a black Chihuahua and a cat. Danielle Fasen’s neighbors, however, lost their German Shepherd.
Fasen said the important thing for her is that her family escaped unhurt. Abi even enjoyed the fall. She asked her mom if she could do it again sometime.
“I told her sure,” Danielle Fasen said. “She can join cheerleading when she gets older.”
The Denver Post’s Bruce Finley contributed to this report.
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