People Angry, Frustrated after Detroit Fires

DETROIT - It was a city in flames as dozens of fires burned across Detroit Tuesday. The aftermath is very clear. What used to be homes are now piles of charred rubble. Early estimates show there were at least 85 fires, all within a four hour period.

Winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour are blamed for knocking down power lines and fanning the flames in some cases. Meanwhile, in one neighborhood, an illegal power hookup led to the fiery mess.

Sadness and anger doesn’t even begin to explain what people are feeling. They are heartbroken. They invested everything they had in these neighborhoods.

As if families in one west side neighborhood hadn’t been through enough, a meter maid began slapping cars parked in front of gutted homes with tickets Wednesday. The scene was so shocking and ridiculous that even she seemed embarrassed of what she was doing.

She finally took a ticket off one upset woman’s van, but that was not until she spotted our cameras.

Neighbors say this whole scene reflects why they are so frustrated because while they are constantly giving to the city of Detroit, citizens like them are getting nothing in return.

’We’re paying taxes, and it’s not like this was an abandoned neighborhood. We have people’ fighting and spending every dime that we have trying to stay here and keep our neighborhood together,’ said one woman.

’Even the vacant houses, we kept them so they didn’t look like they were vacant,’ said one man.

They say it took more than an hour and a half for one fire truck to respond to the fire, and by the time crews showed up, the fire that began at one house quickly spread to nine homes, gutting many and burning some to the ground.

’The men and woman out there, they gave it their all. I saw firemen on their knees in the street from exhaustion. They’re giving it their all, but they’re not given the resources they need in order to be effective,’ said a third person.

’We don’t have the coverage that we needed to have. They said that the trucks had gone someplace else, and ours actually came from southwest Detroit,’ the aforementioned woman said.

’Just watching everything burning and walking in the backyard where you normally see the garages and fences and houses and now just nothing is there. The neighborhood has a hole torn in it that’s not coming back,’ the aforementioned man said.

There were plenty of different fires going on across the city and firefighters were spread really thin, but at the same time, there was a fire truck nearby that was pulled out of service to save money. People are saying that fire truck could have been called into service to help out. So, there is a lot of anger and frustration, as well as several losing faith in the city.