4 Apartments Gone in Fire but Residents OK--Cat Too

The burned carpet crunched beneath her feet and sunshine poured down through what used to be the roof as Dorothy Long picked through the blackened rubble of her Tustin apartment Sunday.

But the 68-year-old woman refused to be disheartened about what she lost in the early morning fire that destroyed a four-unit building in her apartment complex.

“As long as I got out and my cat got out, the rest are all just material things,” Long said as she methodically searched for unburned belongings with the help of her daughter-in-law, Karen Long, 41, of Moorpark.

The fire at the Bahamas apartment complex, located in the 15700 block of Pasadena Avenue, near the Costa Mesa Freeway, was reported at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, according a spokesman for Orange County Fire Department.

Residents of all four apartments were home but escaped without injury. One county firefighter, who was not identified, sustained minor injuries when some debris fell on him, the spokesman said. Damage caused by the fire was estimated at $400,000.

Neighbors Awakened

Neighbors said the flames on the shake roof of the single-story building could be seen from the opposite side of the freeway. So intense was the heat, Long said, that neighbors across the street reported they were awakened by it.

“It was an inferno,” said Janet Allen, 45, another resident in the complex, whose apartment was not burned. “We couldn’t believe it.”

Long said she had just said goodby to a visiting grandson and his friend before midnight when she “saw a flash” out the window. In her back yard, she saw some sparks on the ground, which she stamped out.

A few minutes later, as she was getting into bed, she saw another flash. She ran outside again and this time saw flames on the eaves of her roof. Immediately, she tried to call 911 but her telephone was dead, she said. So she grabbed her robe and slippers and ran out, “and then it went up,” she said. But Long said she was not scared.

“I think I was in shock,” she said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Long and other residents said Sunday that police already were at the apartment complex at the time. They said they heard police were called to check out a report that someone had been shooting off illegal fireworks: rockets.

However, a county Fire Department spokesman said that is not suspected to be the cause of the fire. The investigator on the case was not available for further comment. A spokeswoman for the Tustin Police Department said Sunday that she did not know why police were at the complex.

Long said that after she ran out of the burning apartment, she became anxious about her house cat, Baby, but police would not allow her to got back for the animal. The cat apparently escaped when firefighters arrived, for Long found her pet wandering around the complex later Sunday morning.

The flames were contained to the one building, although several other units were just a few feet away.

Russ Ingram, who lives across the street in another complex, said one of his neighbors ran over to the burning apartments to help. The man grabbed a hose and began watering down the roof of the building closest to the burning structure, Ingram said. The roof did not ignite, although a towering palm tree adjacent to it was scorched. Residents said firefighters concentrated their efforts on protecting the surrounding apartments because the burning structure already was fully involved.

Forty firefighters battled the blaze, which took 50 minutes to control.

A spokeswoman for the American Red Cross said all of the displaced residents found shelter for the night with relatives or friends.

Long said she spent the night with her son in Cerritos but returned to Tustin Sunday to see if anything could be salvaged.

“It’s just a mess,” she said.