100 Flee Blaze at Retirement Villa; 4 People Injured

Three elderly women and a police officer were injured in a suspicious, late-night blaze that sent more than 100 residents of a retirement home fleeing for safety into the chilly night, authorities and witnesses said Saturday.

When firefighters arrived at the Acacia Villa shortly before midnight Friday, Battalion Chief Vince Bonacker said, heavy black smoke was billowing out of several windows and open doors. Some residents--frightened, confused and cold--were already milling on a lawn and driveway outside the three-story complex.

Others were trying to lead neighbors out of the building, Bonacker said, but they were turned back by the heat and smoke.

“We were freezing,” one elderly resident said Saturday morning. “We were out of there so fast we didn’t even have time to grab our bathrobes.”

One woman was hospitalized for burns from the fire, while the other three victims were treated for smoke inhalation.

The blaze, which was reported at 11:44 p.m. and took 10 minutes to extinguish, was confined to a hallway in the northeast wing of the complex at Acacia Parkway and Main Street, fire officials said.

It appeared to have flared up in a corner of a corridor and caused about $75,000 in damage, they said.

None of the apartments on the hallway were damaged, a spokesman for the building’s owner said.

A preliminary investigation suggested that the fire may have been set, Battalion Chief Ted Just said. But he was uncertain how it was sparked.

“There’s no way it could have started naturally,” Just said, adding that it remains under investigation.

Beren Faye Worms, 85, was in her apartment when the alarms went off. In a panic, she threw open her front door to escape, but flames were racing through the hall. She was immediately overcome by intense heat and thick smoke and fell unconscious in the hallway, said neighbor Jennie Collins, 68.

Firefighters finally got Worms out of the building, and she was taken to AMI Medical Center of Garden Grove for treatment of smoke inhalation and first- and second-degree burns over her face, arms and back. Hospital officials declined to release her condition.

“She’s a nice lady,” said Collins, a resident who was saved when building manager Barbara Evans awoke her, helped her into her wheelchair and rolled her out of the smoke-filled building.

“I thank God for her,” Collins said. “She saved my life.”

Also injured were Lois Morrison, 97, who was treated for smoke inhalation at AMI Medical Center and released; Belinda Martinez, 63, who was treated at Humana Hospital-West Anaheim for chest pains and released, and Officer Jack Ayers, 46, who was treated at the scene for minor smoke inhalation.

Ayers, a member of the department’s gang enforcement detail, said he was getting off work when he heard the alarm on his scanner. He and partner Eli Vasquez drove to the complex and saw residents already filing out of the building.

Rushing into the hall, they were engulfed by thick smoke, he said.

“It was so black I couldn’t see a thing,” Ayers said.

He and his partner then rushed up to the third floor and began yelling to residents to wake up. While Vasquez carried Martinez down the three flights of stairs, Ayers continued to kick open doors and usher out residents.

Alice Kehoe, who lives next to the blackened wing, said she was watching TV when she heard the alarms go off. She ran to the front door, opened it and was hit by a wall of opaque smoke. The hall lights had gone out, so she was forced to feel her way down the corridor and out to safety.

During the ordeal, she said, she kept her composure. “I wasn’t afraid,” she staunchly maintained.

Her friends jokingly questioned her bravado. “I don’t know about you,” Collins said, “but I was petrified.”

Battalion Chief Just said Friday night’s blaze was the third in the last several years at the home.

Larry Schwartz, a spokesman for G & K Management, the owner of the building, said 23 of the 161 apartments will be closed for about a week while crews repair the blackened hallway.

Scott Tokar, a spokesman for the county chapter of the Red Cross, said his organization provided bus transportation and hotel rooms for 16 displaced residents. He said they will be cared for until they can return to their apartments.

“We’ll take care of them as long as the need it,” Tokar said. “We’ll play it by ear.”