Victims of Woodstock Willow Brooke apartment fire pick up the pieces; preliminary cause identified

WOODSTOCK – Devin Whiting thought someone was playing a prank when he heard banging on the doors at 3 a.m. March 25 at his Woodstock apartment.

He didn’t expect to look out the door to see flames.

“It was horrifying,” he said. “I heard a loud boom and the first two buildings are just completely engulfed in flames.”

Whiting and his fiancée, Alex Romero, were two of the people affected by the massive fire that broke out last month at Willow Brooke apartment complex, displacing 30 families and causing $2.3 million in damage.

The fire was caused by a possible malfunction of either an electric baseboard heater or electric circuits located in one of the apartments, according to a preliminary fire investigation report from the Woodstock Fire/Rescue District.

The night of the fire, neighbor Abimael Sanchez’s dog woke him at 3 a.m. to go outside. He didn’t see anything, or smell smoke at the time.

When he went back inside, he opened his window, which is when he could smell smoke and burning plastic, so he went out on the deck to check things out, according to the report.

Sanchez could see smoke coming from the building next door, so he called 911 and went back outside and walked over to the apartments. He saw flames, then started pushing door buzzers in hopes of waking up residents.

Residents Brian Rice and Casey Schilling woke up around 3:20 a.m. because they heard something breaking and their dog was whining.

When Rice went to the living room to see what was going on, he saw fire shooting out from the wall. The patio door broke, and flames began dancing against the front door. The two and their dog left through the back, according to the report.

Firefighters had the fire under control by about 4:30 a.m., but weren’t cleared to leave the scene until almost 2:30 p.m, according to the fire report.

The Red Cross and the McHenry County Housing Authority were also on scene that day.

Romero wasn’t home the night of the fire.

She woke up to texts and phone calls asking her whether she was OK, and didn’t know what they were talking about until she got to Whiting’s messages.

He had been sitting in his car watching the firefighters battle the flames all night, blocked into the parking lot by emergency vehicles.

“It was really, really scary,” she said. “I was really worried about what happened to everything, to Devin, if the pets were OK.”

Whiting and Romero – along with their ferret and cat, who did make it out safely – are currently living with Romero’s parents in Harvard. They plan to buy a house now, which had been on the back burner when they lived at Willow Brooke.

“Life has a weird way of pushing you in the right direction,” Whiting said. “It’s kind of worked out for us.”

Nonprofits such as Home of the Sparrow also assisted with vouchers for the victims, she said.

The city of Woodstock’s fundraiser garnered $8,861.74, with donations still trickling in. The city plans to cut the last check to victims next week, officials said.

Multiple GoFundMe pages were created for the victims as well, including one for Whiting and Romero.

The majority of displaced people have been rehoused in other apartments owned by Cunat Inc., who run Willow Brooke Apartments, said Sue Rose, community service director with the McHenry County Housing Authority.

“There are still a couple of people who live in motel shelter,” she said. “Some of those need handicap access, with first-floor units, and those are a bit tougher to come by.”

The housing authority will pay for the hotel stay for up to eight weeks, Rose said.

Fundraisers are ongoing, she said.

“Different churches and services groups have reached out to help the fire victims,” she said. “The city of Woodstock did a fundraiser, so the victims were given a check to help them replenish some of the things they lost.”