Anaheim Grease Fire Guts 8 Apartments, Leaves 26 Homeless

An overheated pan of french fries apparently triggered a kitchen grease fire Wednesday that destroyed eight apartments in an Anaheim complex, forcing the evacuation of about 75 residents and leaving 26 of them homeless, authorities said.

No one was injured in the fire, which was reported at 11:45 a.m. at the Sundial Apartments in the 2700 block of West Ball Road. The blaze, which caused an estimated $350,000 in damage before it was brought under control 42 minutes later, left two other apartments partially damaged but uninhabitable in the 106-unit complex with wood-shake roofs.

‘My Apartment Burned . . . ‘

Mary Ann Lohrke-Allen, 22, who had been at work, arrived home and found the building burned less than an hour later. “My apartment burned down I guess,” she said tearfully. She sat on the curb across the street from the building, a friend’s protective arm around her shoulder. “I lost everything,” she said.

Other residents huddled on the same side of the street, some crying, others speechless, most of them seeking some consolation in their mutual loss and unsure of what, if anything, was left of their homes. Firefighters battled hot spots for at least an hour after the fire was controlled and kept tenants away from the courtyard.

Residents were allowed back into what remained of their apartments by 2 p.m., fire officials said.

Sherry Rice and her husband, Dan, lost everything in the fire but a weight machine, said a spokesman for the Orange County chapter of the American Red Cross, which was providing shelter, clothing and food for the fire victims. When residents were allowed back into the courtyard in front of their destroyed apartments, Rice dropped to her knees sobbing, her hand over her eyes. Others just shook their heads and left.

Anaheim fire officials said two men who initially tried to extinguish the stove-top fire by throwing water on it may have inadvertently spread the blaze.

“The last thing you want to do with a grease fire is throw water on it, which is apparently what they did,” Anaheim city spokesman Patrick Denny said. They “splashed it on the wall. A grease fire is something you want to smother . . . with baking powder or flour.”

A wooden roof that one firefighter described as “kindling” also helped spread the fire, officials said. Eight of the 10 burned apartments did not have even a rafter remaining.

Anaheim fire investigator Don Penfield said the fire appeared “to be accidentally caused” and “a possible cooking fire,” although his investigation is continuing.

While no one was injured, the blaze threw chaos into the lives of dozens of residents Wednesday. A Vietnamese refugee found he had to rebuild his life from scratch for the second time since 1975. A baby was wearing donated clothing, while his mother was still unaware as of late in the afternoon that all of their belongings had been destroyed. And the baby’s uncle, 27-year-old Frank Hicks, was left to ruminate over his part in the blaze.

Fire investigator Penfield, city spokesman Denny and witnesses at the apartment building provided the following account of the fire:

The blaze began on the range of a downstairs apartment, where Frank Hicks was cooking French fries in a deep pan of grease. It was to be a midday snack, said Hicks’ friend, Jerome Pride, 26, a resident of Orange who had spent Tuesday night at the Anaheim apartment.

The grease boiled over, then “got too hot” and “caught fire,” said Pride, standing barefoot outside the fire-damaged apartment building. A picture hanging above the stove caught fire as Pride tried “throwing water” at the flames, Pride said.

When he turned around, Pride said he found himself alone as flames spread to the living room; Hicks had fled. A neighbor crouched at the front door urged him to run in that direction, but Pride said the flames had spread to the front room, blocking his path.

Apartment building manager Freda Seaman said she could see the flames as she peered through the front window, along with Hicks, urging Pride to flee. Pride quickly plunged through the screen of a window.

Someone called the Fire Department, but the flames “seemed to spread just like that,” Seaman said, snapping her fingers.

Eight apartments, all of them facing a courtyard with a pool and spa, were gutted and left roofless within an hour, steam and smoke wafting out. Two more apartments were heavily damaged by water and flames and deemed uninhabitable. All were two bedroom units in the complex’s Building E.

Hicks said his family--his mother, Willy Wright, his sister and her baby and he--would probably stay Wednesday night with relatives.

“I just hope everyone else can find someplace” to stay, he added. “We tried to put it out and couldn’t so we just left.”

Hicks, who seemed dazed, then wandered down the street, saying, “I just want to go home now.”

Pride said Hicks was walking to a nearby pay phone, where he would again try to reach his mother and sister, who had not been told of the fire.

“He’s feeling pretty bad right now,” Pride said of Hicks. “He’s very distraught. I’m still distraught. It’s really tough to see it all now. Everything’s gone. Three TVs, microwaves, his (younger) sister’s clothes, the baby’s clothes. There is just nothing left--nothing.”

Quoc Nguyen, 32, seemed stoic about the devastation as he peered through a wrought-iron gate at firefighters as they first battled the blaze, then again as he surveyed the charred remains of his home three hours later. Nguyen, who lived alone in the upstairs apartment at the end of Building E, had lost everything he owned for the second time since 1975.

“When Saigon fell, I flee myself. My family came later. They live in Santa Ana. We lost everything.”

On Wednesday, Nguyen, was home when the fire broke out. “I heard somebody scream, and I get out,” he said. “I didn’t bring anything--only my portfolio from work,” he said with a shrug, and looked away.

Times staff writer Laura Kurtzman also contributed to this article.