Victims of House Fire Are Happy to Say Good Riddance to Unkind ’87

For Nello and Margie Kunkel, 1987 ended on an appropriately disastrous note.

The year had already brought heart attacks to two close relatives and a medical emergency to Kunkel just last week. The year had also seen Kunkel’s general contracting business fall into a deep slump.

So what else could happen?

As Kunkel, 62, torched parts of his Christmas tree in the fireplace of his Buena Park home on New Year’s Eve, flaming embers sailed out onto the wood shake roof and set the family’s home on fire. Firefighters contained the damage at an estimated $150,000, with the roof destroyed and significant smoke and water damage reported throughout the house. The five-bedroom home is appraised at about $350,000.

“Eighty-eight’s gonna be better; it has to be,” a passer-by assured Margie Kunkel, 50, in a street flooded with water from the numerous fire hoses that snaked toward the house on 8562 Kendor Drive.

The good news out of Thursday’s tragedy was that no one was injured. Margie Kunkel, her husband and a 5-year-old granddaughter all escaped. The couple’s two grown daughters who live at home were away at the time. And a young passer-by ran into the house and saved the family dog and cat.

Still Grateful

For all that, Margie Kunkel is grateful.

“It’ll be fine,” she said, managing a weak smile as friends and relatives comforted her. “We’ll survive.”

She said 1987 had been chock-full of bad luck for the family.

Her husband’s brother had suffered first one heart attack and then another a few weeks later. His mother had been rushed in for open heart surgery. Those relatives both survived.

And Kunkel himself last week underwent surgery for an ailment his wife chose not to disclose, saying only that there were complications.

On top of all that, the contracting business Kunkel has run out of his home had been in a yearlong slump. Margie Kunkel said there was light at the end of the tunnel in that regard, however, as her husband just Wednesday night had signed a contract for a big new job.

“It (1988) was starting good,” she said.

Threw In Christmas Tree

Relaxing at their home Thursday afternoon, Nello Kunkel decided to dispose of the family’s Christmas tree. He said he broke off a couple of the top branches and tossed them in the fireplace. But then his wife rushed over to stop him from throwing in any more.

“I said, ‘We’re not supposed to do that,’ and he took the rest of the tree outside,” she said.

Outside the house, Nello Kunkel said, he noticed smoke billowing from a vent.

“So I ran in and told my wife to call the Fire Department and I grabbed a hose and tried to spray down the roof, but it was to no avail,” he said.

In the front yard, Margie Kunkel also used a garden hose to try to quell the leaping flames. She was assisted by a passer-by, Laura Patrick, 38, whose 13-year-old son, Brian, sprinted into the house to rescue the family pets and check each bedroom to make sure everyone had gotten out safely.

Paul Hunter, acting battalion chief for the Buena Park Fire Department, said that when his engines arrived on the scene, flames had spread quickly across the roof and into the attic. Fearing that the fire would spread to other houses in the neighborhood--many of which have the tinder-dry wood shake roofs--Hunter pulled a second alarm that prompted fire engines from Anaheim, Fullerton and Orange County to respond.

The 35 firefighters on the scene took about 25 minutes putting the fire out. Afterward, Buena Park Division Fire Chief Art Fonceca wearily repeated the standard warning for people not to burn Christmas trees in their fireplaces.

“Christmas trees are real bad because they burn real hot,” Fonceca said. “He also did not have a spark arrester (in the fireplace to capture any stray sparks up the chimney flue).”

With the fire under control, the Kunkel family struggled with basic details, such as finding a place to sleep that night. They were unable to contact their insurance agent despite repeated attempts to do so. As of late Thursday, they glumly faced the prospect of spending a cold night in their motor home.

The family should, nonetheless, count its blessings, suggested Laura Patrick.

“The important things came out, and those were the woman, her husband, their granddaughter and the dog and cat,” she said.