Mother, son killed in fire at apartments

After working a graveyard shift, security guard Michael Thompson was lying in bed Tuesday morning when he saw a pre-dawn blaze on the local television news.

"I thought, 'That looks like my grandma's apartment that caught fire,' " he said.

Thompson was devastated when his fears were confirmed. Not only had his grandmother's apartment been destroyed, both she and Thompson's uncle had died in the fire.

"It's not one person but two," he said, fighting back tears as he stood in front of what was left of the charred Woodhaven Apartments building at 3650 Stober Blvd., near Arville Street and Twain Avenue.

Goldie Thompson was in her late 80s, and her son, Carl Thompson, was in his late 60s, Michael Thompson said. They were both in poor health, so that may have been why they were unable to get out of the burning building, he said.

Jose Rodriguez lives in the apartment building across from the one gutted by the fire. Rodriguez said he was getting ready to work his early-morning shift as a carpet installer at casinos about 2:30 a.m. when his neighbor knocked frantically on his door yelling about the fire. Rodriguez then joined his neighbor in knocking on other doors, waking people and helping them get out of their apartments.

Rodriguez said he saw smoke coming from the Thompsons' window and knocked on the door and window but nobody responded. Rodriguez said he would often talk to Carl Thompson, "a good guy," but didn't know much about Goldie Thompson because she was bedridden.

The fire damaged 16 units in the building, nine of which were destroyed and seven of which had major water damage. About 40 people were displaced by the blaze, which caused an estimated $2 million in damage, representatives of the complex and the Clark County Fire Department said.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation Tuesday night, but it apparently started in the Thompsons' apartment, according to Scott Allison, a spokesman for the fire department.

A space heater or a cigarette might have started it. Once it started, flames quickly consumed the entire building because it was built mainly from wood and had a large common attic, Allison said.

Apartment buildings like Woodhaven "go up like a tinderbox," Allison said .

He said one obstacle firefighters faced was that the complex didn't have a fire hydrant on the property. Firefighters used two fire hydrants north and south of the complex and had to cut through an iron fence to get to one hydrant.

Even if firefighters had access to a hydrant on the property, however, it is unlikely it would have made a difference for Goldie and Carl Thompson, Allison said.

"There was so much fire when we got there," he said. "We don't believe we could have saved those people."

Their deaths raised the year's total for fire deaths in the Clark County Fire Department's jurisdiction to seven, equaling the total for all of 2006.

Allison said the department will try to determine if the complex was in violation of any county safety codes. He said all new apartment complex's must have fire hydrants on their properties, but he didn't know if those codes applied to Woodhaven because of its age. It was built in 1980 according to county records,

Capt. Chris Blackburn, with the Clark County Fire Department, said many people lost all their possessions because of the fire.

Linda Bradley, Woodhaven's property manager, said anyone displaced by the fire will be offered apartments within the same complex.

A regional manager of the complex said the Red Cross was helping displaced families financially and beds were donated to the complex by a local business.

Bradley said they had just finished safety inspections of the apartment complex Monday, and all smoke detectors worked.

Bradley said she thinks the Thompsons had lived at the complex from the time it opened. "We were just getting ready to re-carpet and paint (the apartment) for them, because they had been here so long," she said.

Michael Thompson had lived in the apartment for three years as a teenager.

When he had seen the TV footage, he had even recognized an electrical box because it had been a spot where family photos had been snapped.

Amid the charred remains of the apartment Tuesday morning, Thompson tried in vain to recover tangible pieces of his memories. "It's all gone. I even looked for the smallest items. It's all gone.

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