Electrical blaze consumes motor home, killing tenant

A middle-age man living in a motor home died Tuesday morning when an electrical fire engulfed the vehicle, a fire official said.

The owner of the motor home, Sam Tung, said that two months ago he had persuaded city code enforcement officials to allow him to keep the motor home on his property. Shortly after, an occasional tenant, Kenneth Tillman, moved back in.

The decision proved tragic.

The blaze at the motor home started accidentally in the backyard of 415 S. 17th street, east of Maryland Parkway near Charleston Boulevard, said Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski.

The motor home received power from an extension cord connected to the main house. The extension cord connected to a power strip, which investigators think triggered the fire.

As a precaution, fire officials turned off the utilities at the house and its outbuilding in the backyard, where five men lived, Szymanski said. The men, as well as Tung and his family, had to find somewhere else to stay. Firefighters also boarded up the windows and doors of the outbuilding because of unsafe wiring coming from the home to the outbuilding.

Firefighters responded to the fire shortly after 8:16 a.m. Firefighters could not immediately gain access to the motor home because the door was blocked by a tree. Szymanski said firefighters put out the blaze by shooting water through the mobile home's windows and cutting the back of the home with saws.

Firefighters found the man's body inside the motor home, Szymanski said.

"It appeared he might have been crawling, reaching for a window," Szymanski said.

Tung, the owner of the residence, identified the victim as 50-year-old Tillman. He said Tillman paid him $355 a month to live in the motor home.

Tung said Tillman was a quiet man who loved to play electric guitar.

"He was a good man and a good musician," Tung said.

Tung said he felt "horrible" Tillman died, but that he wasn't responsible and that the motor home and its outbuilding were safe. Tung said the men who lived in the outbuilding paid him $350 a month for rent.

Tung said Las Vegas code inspectors visited his home two months ago and asked him to remove two motor homes from his property. Tung said he persuaded the inspectors to allow him to keep one motor home on his property. City code inspectors could not be reached late Tuesday to verify Tung's story.

Officials with the American Red Cross of Southern Nevada were at the home Tuesday afternoon. They said they couldn't help the displaced men because the fire didn't reach the outbuilding. Tung didn't know the dimensions of the outbuilding, but an official with the Red Cross said one of the five rooms was no larger than 8-by-6 square feet.

One man who lived in the outbuilding yelled at Tung on Tuesday afternoon and called him a slumlord. Before he walked off the property, the man said he hoped Tung was prosecuted for Tillman's death.

Firefighters gave the five men who lived in the outbuilding $100 vouchers.

Szymanski said officials with Las Vegas' neighborhood services would decide this morning whether the house and the outbuilding are safe. Tung said his family would spend Tuesday night at his brother's house, but that he worried about where his tenants would stay.

Brian Omarcin, a 55-year-old tenant who lived in the outbuilding, said he was happy to be alive.

"I've been homeless before," Omarcin said. "I'll make it."

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-4638.