Residents of Heatherwood Apartments in Anderson were homeless this morning after a “suspicious” fire destroyed much of senior-living complex early today.

The fire was reported at 4:35 a.m., just hours after firefighters had responded to another fire at the same building. City fire chief Jack Abraham said when firefighters responded to the first call, at 1:27 a.m., they found magazines burning on a table in the lobby.

The cause of the second fire is being investigated today by SLED, Anderson City Fire and Anderson City Police arson investigators.

“It is suspicious, because it was the second fire of the night in the same building, and basically in the same location, which was the center lobby area, only the second fire appears to have started on the second floor.”

Of the first fire, Abraham said the magazines “would have had to have been set on fire intentionally.”

Abraham said all of the building?s tenants had been accounted for as of mid-Sunday morning. Six residents had to be transported to the hospital ?with non-life-threatening injuries,? Abraham said, along with two city police officers who suffered from smoke inhalation.

The Red Cross opened a shelter at Cornerstone Church, and 45 displaced residents were transported to the shelter, Abraham said.

The building was not equipped with a sprinkler system, which Abraham said was not a code violation because when the apartments were constructed, sprinklers were not required.

“If this building had been sprinklered, as with most residential structure fires, the damage would have been minimal and the occupants would have been eating breakfast at their breakfast tables, not dislodged for probably months,” he said.

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