At about 6:30 p.m. March 14, North County Fire & Rescue Protection District crews jetted off to contain a grass fire in parts of Bellefontaine Neighbors after high winds ripped through the St. Louis region.
When the first battalion chief showed up to the scene, two homes were burning, and the powerful winds ignited other fires on Repose Drive.
District Chief Keith Goldstein said it was a chaotic day.
“We train for inclement weather all year long. The problem was the severity of the high winds that we received this time,” he said, “I've been doing this for 39 years, and I've never been on any (fire) like I was the other night.”
Goldstein said the four-alarm fire damaged about a dozen homes, and the high winds likely caused the fire to spread. He has declared the cause of the fires to be undetermined and not intentional.
Some members of the Bellefontaine Neighbors Board of Aldermen were notified of the fires on Friday and assessed the scene the following morning. Fourth Ward Alderwoman Alease Dailes drove through the city and noticed downed power lines and trees, as well as piles of debris. However, she said the damage off Esquire and Repose drives was devastating.
“Some houses got really bad damage, and some houses the fire skipped,” Dailes said. “You can really smell the smoke, and the heat was so intense that some of the properties that really didn't get damaged, the heat from the fire actually melted some of the siding on the homes, but it didn't penetrate the home, which is good.”
Dailes has been living in Bellefontaine Neighbors for decades. She said this is the worst storm damage she has seen, but the community will recover quickly because families are already cleaning up and stepping in to support those who need it the most.
The Salvation Army has deployed mobile units filled with food and beverages to help keep families in parts of north county nourished and hydrated while recovering from the storm. Organization leaders are working with local and regional emergency managers to prepare recovery plans.
“We're assessing the damage and communicating back to other community partners and then crafting a recovery plan of how we can be engaged with these neighborhoods and individuals, not only in the immediate future but helping them with long-term recovery as well,” said Maj. Adam Moore, general secretary for the Salvation Army Midland division and the Greater St Louis area commander.
Moore said Bellefontaine Neighbors and Florissant areas are some areas across the region that were hit the hardest because of the fast-moving fires and powerful winds.
![David Helling explains how what he believes is a tornado ripped through his Florissant home on Monday, March 17, 2025. A series of deadly tornadoes swept through the Midwest and South over the weekend, killing a dozen in Missouri. “Being born and raised here, […] you definitely are notice,” he said of severe storms. “But, you never think that this could happen to you.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f4819b3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5b%2Fbe%2Fc744229f401e9f23eef9fc3ed742%2F031725-bm-storm-3.jpg)
‘The roof was missing’
Kate Mezzenga and David Helling are familiar with Midwest storms and treated the tornado sirens that went off in Florissant as another storm alert.
After seeing a television meteorologist take shelter during a live broadcast on Friday night, Mezzenga and Helling took Sophie, their 12-year-old deaf Pug, and Tsuki, their 13-year-old cat, to the basement and waited until the storm passed before returning upstairs.
Mezzenga said the winds were raging at first, but then it was eerily quiet. But neither one of them was prepared for the aftermath.
“We're just fortunate that we made it into the basement when we did and certainly didn't expect to walk upstairs and see our entire carport was gone and the roof was missing,” Helling said.
They moved into their house in September 2023 from St. Charles but will have to stay with family until the insurance company completes the damage claim and possible repairs — which they were told could take up to 18 months.
A nonprofit group, whose name the couple could not remember, offered to help with cleanup as they attempted to salvage what they could.
“We're currently grateful for something like that because nobody should have to go through something like this,” Helling said. “When you see the aftermath, you start asking yourself, ‘What do I do?’ so having an organization like that pop up, it's just a huge help.”
Brian Munoz contributed to this report.
