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Retirement-Home Residents Recall Near-Disaster : Thanks Given for a Night of Deliverance

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Times Staff Writer

Ruby Marsh, 87, said she’ll probably never know which firefighter led her from her burning apartment to safety the night a spectacular blaze ripped through part of Fickett Towers retirement home in Van Nuys.

“It was so dark and smoky. My windows were busting out, my drapes were burning, I just grabbed onto him and never saw his face,” she said. “I never knew who to thank.”

So Saturday, Marsh and 200 other residents of Fickett Towers invited all the firefighters over for a thank-you and luncheon. About 50 uniformed men and at least 20 off-duty firefighters were greeted with handshakes and standing ovations from the same residents who nine months ago were crying for help.

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“I just went right up and kissed one of them,” Marsh said.

Wall of Fire

The midnight fire last July 22 erupted in a three-story condominium project under construction next door to the retirement center. Within minutes, flames and intense heat had shattered windows of the 12-story Fickett Towers, igniting curtains and forming a wall of fire that destroyed 14 apartment units and caused $1 million in damage.

All 232 residents, many in their 90s, were evacuated. Dozens who were too afraid to leave their apartments alone were carried out by firefighters. Eight people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation, but none was seriously injured.

Officials said arson was the cause of the condominium fire, but no suspect has been found in that or a string of four other similar San Fernando Valley construction site fires, said Fire Department Division Chief Jack Bennett.

Saturday’s occasion seemed almost like a reunion of war veterans. Groups of residents huddled together, recalling how they escaped the blaze. Firefighters pointed to sections of the now-repaired building, remembering the horror of seeing portions of nine floors engulfed in flames at the same time.

Night Remembered

“Are you fellas firemen?” Virginia Gregory asked two men in street clothes. When they said yes, the 88-year-old woman launched into a lively story.

“I just don’t know what to say to you,” she said, shaking their hands. “I had never been down that stairway before and was so scared. Finally, one fella picked me up and carried me out to the parking lot. “

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Firefighter Herb Johnson of Station 89 in North Hollywood told Gregory how he and other firefighters walked through the smoke-filled hallways, kicking down doors to look for residents.

“We couldn’t see who we were grabbing,” Johnson said. “We just got a hold of people and out we went.”

‘Ominous Fire’

Donald O. Manning, Fire Department chief engineer and general manager, told the crowd he had “never responded to as ominous a fire as that night,” but called firefighting efforts a “superb textbook case.”

He said the immediate decision of the first chief on the scene, Donald Kate, to divert firefighter efforts to the retirement center, instead of to the condominium project, in part saved the lives of residents.

But in an afternoon laden with thank-yous, Kate said it was the residents who saved their own lives by evacuating in an orderly fashion in a situation that throws most people into panic and confusion.

One 76-year-old woman began to cry when she recalled her rescue.

“I have a heart problem and when I opened my door and took one whiff of that smoke I knew I couldn’t get out of my place. I couldn’t face that smoke alone,” she said. “I stood at my window and a helicopter flashed lights on me. Then a fireman came in and carried me down the stairs and I couldn’t even see his face because he had a gas mask on.”

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“I’m so grateful for what they did. I get all emotional when I think about it,” she said.

“But they all look so nice and handsome today without the masks and the helmets. I wasn’t afraid to go up to couple of them and told them thanks--right to their face.”

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