10 Killed as Fire Sweeps Rooming House : Blaze: Some elderly and handicapped residents could not escape. The home had lost its license as an adult care center.

Fire roared through a boarding house early Tuesday and killed 10 people, many of them elderly or handicapped. Authorities said they suspected careless smoking was the cause.

“I grabbed my blanket and put it over my head and I got out,” said Delores Strempeck, 60. Her roommate also got up but never made it out, she said.

Investigators were concentrating on the kitchen of the three-story building, where witnesses said the fire started about 2 a.m.

“It started in the west wall of the kitchen between the stove and the sink,” Arson Capt. Donald Robinson told reporters. He said investigators were looking for evidence of carelessly discarded cigarettes.

“There was no evidence of anything cooking on the stove or the stove being on at the time,” Robinson added.

Fire Chief Harold Watkins said the dead, four women and six men whose ages ranged from the mid-40s to 89, were found in bedrooms on the second and third floors. Two others were injured; four residents and a night caretaker escaped unharmed.

The house was once operated as an adult foster care center, said Chuck Peller of the state Department of Social Services in Lansing. He said the state revoked its license in 1977, citing fire code, safety and paperwork violations.

The violations included inadequate fire extinguishers, an inadequate number of exits, a locked exit or exits and open stairwells, the department said. Since then the home had been a rooming house and needed no state license, Peller said.

Janie Nelson, who, with her husband, Robert, has owned the home for 33 years, said the house underwent annual city inspection and licensing. The building is one of several large frame and brick houses spaced between vacant lots on the city’s west side.

“Some (residents) have been there 27 years,” she said. “It’s terrible.”

Caretaker Tyree Fluckes, 37, said he was on duty when smoke alarms went off in the kitchen.

Glenn Gregory, 47, heard the alarms in his third-floor bedroom.

“I came downstairs and the kitchen was blazing,” he said.

Gregory and Fluckes said they tried to call 911, but the line was busy. They said they ran back upstairs through the house, pounding on doors and shouting to awaken residents.

“I went and got all the ladies up, I thought they were behind me,” said Fluckes. He and Gregory said the smoke got too thick and they had to flee.

Gregory said he ran next door to call for help.

Joanna West said she was awakened by Gregory and that she, too, tried to call 911 and could not get through.

“Twice I didn’t get a dial tone, and the third time no one answered,” she said. She said she dialed the operator and reported the fire.