Woman Dies in Blaze as Rescue Fails : Tragedy: Sheriff’s deputy’s valiant efforts fall short after cigarette starts fire in 73-year-old widow’s condominium in Laguna Niguel.

A 73-year-old woman died in a condominium fire Tuesday morning despite a rescue attempt by an Orange County sheriff’s deputy who plunged into the flaming home three times before collapsing from smoke inhalation.

Authorities said Nan Merrifield, a 17-year resident of her Carrara Road condominium, died of smoke inhalation while being taken by ambulance to South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach. Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Anderson was treated at the Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo and is expected to be released today.

The morning blaze engulfed three rooms in the single-story condominium, causing an estimated $100,000 in damage. Fire investigator Russ Jones said the fire was sparked by a cigarette in Merrifield’s bedroom, which was almost completely gutted, with only a few blackened beams left standing.

Kathleen Cha, a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Department, said Merrifield’s death was the first fire fatality of the year recorded within the department’s jurisdiction.

Merrifield, who lived alone, apparently passed within feet of where Anderson was searching for her in the dense smoke before collapsing in an adjoining garage. Fire officials said she had no apparent vital signs when found. Paramedics managed to get her breathing for a short time before she died while en route to the hospital.

She suffered burns on her neck and head, firefighters said.

In an interview from his hospital bed, Anderson said he was on patrol shortly before 9 a.m. when he spotted a curl of black smoke rising from the Monarch Summit I neighborhood, a retirement community on a hill off Pacific Island Drive and Crown Valley Parkway.

“When I drove up, I expected the Fire Department to be there, but I was alone,” said Anderson, a six-year police veteran who fought brush fires while employed for the state Department of Forestry. “The neighbors told me that she ( Merrifield) lived alone and had to be in there so I went inside.”

Flames and smoke drove him back outside, but Anderson grabbed a nearby garden hose to serve as a lifeline and crawled into the house on his belly.

“It was a total inferno,” he said. “The flames were so intense, I couldn’t raise my head. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

“I went in far enough to make sure nobody had collapsed in any of the entryways near the front, but then I couldn’t breathe anymore.”

Anderson said he passed out for a few seconds in the doorway, but the fresh air revived him enough to meet a second patrol car that was arriving on the scene. “My main thought was to try to get that lady,” he said. “I knew she was inside somewhere.”

The deputy made a final attempt to find Merrifield, but the fire had grown too hot to get more than a few feet inside the front door. Once outside, Anderson fell unconscious on the front lawn as paramedics and fire trucks pulled up.

“I don’t feel like I did anything great,” he said quietly, staring at his hospital gown. “After all, I wasn’t able to save her.”

The Fire Department’s Cha said Merrifield “must have been in bed” when the fire started “and got as far as the garage before she collapsed. She must have been disoriented” by the flames and smoke, Cha said.

A frightened crowd of neighbors huddled together in front of the house as firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze, which caused no damage to an adjoining condominium.

Most of the residents of the block of modest, Spanish-style condominiums remembered Merrifield as a friendly woman who had grown reclusive in the past few years since the death of her husband, Lew Merrifield Sr.

“Nan grieved over her loss,” said William Gresswell, a next-door neighbor of about 10 years who said he hadn’t seen the woman for several days. “She didn’t go out much after he died.”

Gresswell described Merrifield as a short, plump Sicilian woman, “who was a great cook. She loved to cook and she loved to talk, but recently, I don’t think she had many people to talk to.”

He looked at the now-open garage at the spot where Merrifield was found by firefighters and remembered how the Merrifields held a neighborhood brunch to welcome his family to the community.

“They were open and generous people,” he said. “Too bad this had to happen.”