By Pamela Manson and Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune
Copyright 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune
All Rights Reserved
SOUTH SALT LAKE — A fire that injured five people at an apartment complex Monday morning was started by a 4-year-old boy playing with matches, according to fire officials.
Fire Chief Steve Foote said the boy set a pillow on fire on the top level of the three-story complex then threw it onto a common balcony area, where it ignited a propane tank on a barbecue grill.
Shortly after the fire spread, neighbors and passersby scrambled to save residents trapped in upstairs apartments, catching children tossed to them from the upper floor.
Five people were injured in the three-alarm blaze, which was reported at 8:36 a.m. at Mountain Shadows, 3900 S. 700 West. All five victims, who were taken to St. Mark’s Hospital, had non-life-threatening injuries, said Foote.
One woman was treated for smoke inhalation and another for an injury to her back. A 59-year-old man burned his hands trying to help other residents escape. The other two victims are children, a 15-month-old and an older child with a broken ankle, Foote said.
Firefighters, who received the first 911 call about 8:36 a.m., arrived to a “horrible” scene, Foote said. Some residents were jumping out of windows to escape the blaze. Others were frantically trying to save pets, he said.
Mountain Shadows tenant Juan Villaseñor told his wife to call 911 and ran to the burning building in the complex as soon as he saw the fire, despite having a heart condition. Friend Everardo Gutierez, who had arrived to give him a ride to work at their construction job, joined him.
Two frantic women holding small children were leaning out the windows of separate third-level apartments, unable to get down because the stairs to the building were engulfed in flames.
Villaseñor and Gutierez stepped up and each caught a child, according to Edith Garcia, Villaseñor’s wife. A third person caught another child dropped by one of the women. It was an approximately 20-foot drop.
One of the women jumped, hitting the railing of the apartment below before landing on the ground. Villaseñor said he tried to catch her, but was not successful. He acknowledged being scared but focused on helping get residents out of the burning building.
“He did so much,” Garcia said. “He didn’t care about the fire. He just cared about the people.”
Kyle Bevan, a 30-year-old West Jordan salesman who was driving by, also came to the rescue when he saw the smoke coming out of the apartment building and saw the stairs to the upper level on fire.
He said one of the women dropped two medium-sized dogs out of the window and then her two children, approximately 2 and 4 years old, after people got below to catch them.
The woman then threw down a blanket and prepared to jump, Bevan said.
Bevan said he and two or three others held the blanket to catch her as a few other people tried to climb up a railing to reach her. Debris was falling on their heads, he said.
“She was on the ledge,” Bevan said. “We held the blanket but she was too scared to jump.”
Then, someone on a cell phone alerted the group that firefighters were within a minute of arrival and the woman waited. Her neighbor, though, who had dropped a child to rescuers below, had already jumped, he said.
Erika Hopkins, who lives in a basement apartment in the building that caught fire, said she was watching TV with a neighbor when she heard what sounded like something being thrown off of an upstairs balcony.
“I looked out my window and said what the hell is going on,” she said. “I opened my door, and my apartment filled with smoke.”
Hopkins said she then saw a carpet that had been hanging off of the upstairs balcony fall to the floor on fire. When she left her apartment, she saw an upstairs neighbor drop two children out of a window to others waiting below. And she watched the woman who jumped and hit the railing.
A Utah Transit Authority bus was brought to the complex to provide immediate shelter to displaced residents.
The fire, which caused an estimated $400,000 in damage, was extinguished about 10 a.m.
The nearest fire hydrant was not working, said Foote, noting it is the apartment complex owner’s responsibility to maintain it. The firefighting effort, however, was not “grossly affected” by the shut-off hydrant, he said.
The American Red Cross responded to the scene to assist families and individuals displaced by the fire.