Fatal Fire: Neighbors Can Only Shake Heads

The Allwrights seemed to be making it.

The family had moved from Culver City two years ago to a nice house on a tree-lined street in the heart of affluent Pacific Palisades.

They had a live-in housekeeper. And the three children--twin boys and a daughter--were in private schools. They drove a new van on vacations to Mexico.

But it all came to a sudden, crashing halt Monday night, when fire raged through their ranch-style, split-level home, killing all three children.

Steve Allwright, a commercial real estate broker, and his wife, Patricia, were attending night classes and had left the children in the care of the housekeeper, who apparently awoke to find the house in flames, according to neighbors.

The housekeeper escaped unhurt, but neighbors who ran to help could not reach the children inside. Candice, 7, and the 5-year-old boys, Adam and Jason, were pronounced dead at the scene.

A Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said Tuesday the blaze erupted when a cloth placed over a lamp ignited. He added that the home was not equipped with smoke detectors, which could have saved the children.

Neighbors said the maid apparently draped the cloth on the lamp because the children did not like to sleep in the dark.

Authorities estimated fire damage at $250,000.

Several neighbors milled about in front of the blackened home Tuesday, shaking their heads, sighing and remembering how devoted the Allwrights were to their children.

“It’s a hell of a thing,” said Doug Maner, an attorney who lives across the street in the 16500 block of Akron Street. “They had bought the cheapest house they could afford in the Palisades, scrimped and saved just to get a foothold here, and now they’re destroyed.”

As Maner spoke, a man who would identify himself only as the Allwrights’ cousin surveyed the gutted house. Children’s books, a rocking horse, a go-cart and other charred toys were strewn about the back yard. The cousin rescued the family cat, which had disappeared after escaping the flames.

“They were the kind of people we used to have as neighbors years ago--real neighbors,” said Thomas Thomas, an actor and writer who lives next door. “Very, very friendly. And those sweet kids . . . .”

“Everything they were doing was for those kids. They were devoted to those kids,” he said.

Thomas’ house was slightly damaged by the fire.

Across the street and up the hill, neighbor and friend Myra Kotick said her three young children used to play with the Allwright youngsters. The two families had moved into the neighborhood at about the same time.

Psychologist Consulted

Kotick was making sandwiches on the tiled counter of her kitchen on Tuesday as she described the impact of the tragedy on her children. She said she had already spoken to a psychologist twice for advice on how to handle the deaths and explain them to her children.

The housekeeper, who was sleeping in one of the children’s rooms, awoke to find the house in flames. Her screams as she ran outside, and the screams of passers-by who saw the yellow glow of flames, awoke neighbors who ran to the home with hoses. But the would-be rescuers were driven back by the smoke and intense heat.

Maner and Adam Urquidez were among the first to reach the house. They crawled into a bedroom, looked in a closet and under a bed, hoping to find the children. It turned out to be the parents’ bedroom, where damage was minor.

Neighbors said they tried to get the housekeeper, who speaks little English, to indicate where the children were. And one neighbor, who spoke some Spanish, tried to interpret. But the housekeeper, covered in ash, barefoot and in her nightgown, was hysterical, they said.

“We were all yelling and screaming. It was such a helpless feeling,” Suzanne Maner, the attorney’s wife, said. “You would think it would be someone who was careless with their children that this would happen to. They were the opposite of that, so caring.”

The section of Pacific Palisades where the Allwrights lived is called Marquez Knolls. Its winding streets are lined with comfortable homes, priced well above half a million dollars. Many smaller homes are being leveled and replaced by larger, more elegant structures.

Like many of their neighbors, the Allwrights were deep into renovating the property. Lumber and cans of paint can be seen in the back yard.

The Allwrights are active parishioners at Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church in Pacific Palisades. Msgr. John Mihan, called to the home late Monday night by a fire captain, gave the children the last rites.

Mihan said he and Steve and Patricia Allwright prayed together.

“They demonstrated very staunch faith . . . ,” the priest said. “We talked of the children being in heaven.”

Candice was a first-grader at the exclusive Wildwood School in Santa Monica.

The head of the school, Anne Simon, on Tuesday remembered how the child almost always wore a tiara fashioned of tinfoil and loved art and writing stories.

“She’s very vivacious, bright and sociable. It’s a great family,” Simon said.

The school activated a “crisis program” Tuesday, Simon said. Parents of Candice’s classmates were invited to meet with a psychologist.

Teachers broke the news to students, who spent more than an hour talking about their feelings and answering questions.

Parents, Simon said, were encouraged to spend the next few nights at home--to allay their children’s fears.