Day-Care Home Fire Kills 2 Infants : 3 Hurt in Huntington Beach; Passers-By Try to Save Babies

Despite heroic efforts from several passers-by, two infants died and two other children were injured in a fast-moving fire that gutted a licensed family day-care center Thursday morning in Huntington Beach.

“I had nothing but a hose,” said Dennis Drew, who frantically sprayed water at the home’s flaming front door before firefighters arrived. “The lady was screaming and yelling that there were children in there, but you couldn’t breathe and you couldn’t see and you couldn’t touch anything . . . Even the firemen, when they came out, started crying after seeing those babies.”

Fire officials, who found no smoke detectors in the rubble, believe the blaze may have been caused by a faulty television set.

The dead infants were identified as Jessica Jordan of Huntington Beach, who would have been 8 months old today, and 13-month-old John H. Reilly IV, according to fire officials and relatives of the children.

Jessica’s mother, Susan Jordan, burst into tears after fire officials at the scene told her about her daughter’s death. “Oh, my God!” she screamed as crisis intervention workers escorted her to a van.

John H. Reilly III, the father of the 13-month-old, stared in disbelief at the charred home at 5122 Audrey Drive when he arrived there Thursday evening.

“He was our only child,” said Reilly, his eyes filling with tears. “I can’t believe it happened. How can something like this happen so quickly?”

Of the other two children at the home, Devon Strayer, 3, of Huntington Beach, was treated at Humana Hospital and released, while Nick Duncan, 6 months, remained hospitalized at UCI Medical Center in Orange with second- and third-degree burns, said Martha Werth, a public information officer for the Huntington Beach Fire Department.

The day-care provider, Pat Orozco, 49, was hospitalized in fair condition with smoke inhalation and second-degree burns on her arms and shoulders. Also hospitalized for smoke inhalation were Huntington Beach firefighter Chris Gruber and Bill Applebee, a Huntington Beach water department employee who tried to rescue the children from the burning house.

Fire officials are investigating reports that the fire may have started in one of two television sets in the home, said Tom Huntley, an investigator with the Huntington Beach Fire Department’s fire prevention bureau.

“There are no statements to show that there was any negligence in this fire,” Huntley said. “Everything we have shows that it is an accidental fire.”

Huntley said investigators have found no evidence of smoke alarms in the house, though there may have been a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

Under state day-care licensing requirements, providers who baby-sit up to six children have the option of equipping their homes with either smoke detectors or fire extinguishers, said Dianne M. Edwards, director of adult and employment services for the Orange County Social Services Agency.

However, the state building code requires family day-care providers to have both fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, said Steve Viero, supervisor of field operations for the state fire marshal. Viero could not explain why the two codes differ, or whose responsibility it is to enforce the smoke-detector requirement.

In an interview from her bed at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, Orozco said she was coming out of the kitchen and entering the living room when she turned around and saw the fire. Orozco said she grabbed two children and took them outside but was unable to get back into the house to retrieve the other two.

“The flames were overwhelming,” she said.

Asked if she knew how the fire started or where the flames were coming from, Orozco just weakly shook her head.

“It’s all kind of blank right now,” she said. “I did my best.”

Witnesses said Orozco ran from the house with a child in her arms after the fire broke out at 9:56 a.m.

“She was going crazy,” said Kevin Mohl, 26, a Huntington Beach resident who happened to be driving by the stucco house. “She was trying to get the babies out. She was going into hysterics.”

Both of the children were found dead in a back room, Werth said, Jessica on the floor and John in a crib. Fire officials speculated that Orozco might have tried to carry Jessica from a nearby swing but ended up dropping the child and losing her in the thick smoke.

Volunteer therapists coordinated by the American Red Cross spent about 15 minutes with Susan and Donald Jordan, Jessica’s parents, before the couple emerged from a white van to look at Orozco’s house. Wrapped in a white blanket, Susan Jordan sat on the curb across the street from Orozco’s house, her husband’s arm wrapped around one shoulder. The couple then went inside a neighbor’s house and left the fire scene several hours later.

“Sometimes they just need to be held and have a shoulder to cry on,” said Linda M. Johnson, a licensed family therapist from Huntington Beach who helped console the distraught Susan Jordan. “Once the shock ends, then the grief begins. This is the beginning for them, not the end.”

A fund for all the families involved in the fire has been set up by the Mortgage Network of Anaheim, which is Susan Jordan’s employer.

Before 11 fire units arrived from Huntington Beach and Westminster, several people tried to dash into the burning house to rescue the children. Among them was Applebee, who doused himself with a hose and tried to search a room at the back of the house where the fire is believed to have started.

“He went in and got three or four stuffed animals out, then the roof collapsed,” said David Hansen, 25, an Arrowhead Water employee who assisted in the rescue attempt.

Orozco’s mother, Lillian Brazamontes of Westminster, said her daughter had been baby-sitting children for about 15 years. However, it was not until last year that she applied for a family day-care license, Edwards said.

There are about 2,400 licensed family day-care facilities in Orange County, Edwards said. There are hundreds of unlicensed homes that county social workers investigate whenever they receive reports of them.

Following up on such a tip, inspector Tiia Mikkelsaar visited Orozco’s home unannounced on April 30, 1987, and determined that at least three children were being cared for, according to agency records.

Orozco was not home at the time, but her mother told the inspector that she would relay the information to her daughter.

When Mikkelsaar returned to the home six weeks later, Orozco had attended a two-hour orientation course for family day-care providers and taken out an application for a license.

She was given a license to care for up to six children on March 14, 1988. The licenses are valid for three years, and each home must be inspected before a license is renewed. Orozco’s home had no outstanding deficiencies or complaints, and her file showed no recurring problems, Edwards said.

When Mikkelsaar visited Orozco’s home the day the license was issued, she noted in her report that Orozco had put a fire extinguisher in her kitchen to correct one of several deficiencies that were noted during an earlier inspection.

The only complaint the agency received against Orozco came about a year ago from parents who said their infant had developed a skin infection at the day-care home. When Mikkelsaar investigated, she found no problems at the home, and Orozco said the complaint was probably made by a couple who had withdrawn their child from her care after he developed diaper rash, said Susan Martinez, county supervisor of day-care licensing.

Orozco said the couple filed the complaint against her because they owed her money. Orozco was suing them in small claims court, Martinez said.

Martinez said that when she was an inspector, she used to advise family day-care providers to put smoke detectors in their home rather than relying solely on fire extinguishers for safety.

“It’s not easy watching six children,” Martinez said. “And yet we get a lot of flak about the limits we place on them (day-care providers).”

Times staff writers Richard Beene, Marcida Dodson, George Frank and Carla Rivera contributed to this report.

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