Man, 74, Dies in Cigarette-Related Fire in Ventura

A Ventura man burned to death early Sunday after apparently falling asleep in his armchair while smoking a cigarette and setting his Pierpont Boulevard home ablaze, fire officials said.

Mortimer Mills, 74, who neighbors said was a retired film and stage actor, was found dead in his chair shortly before 8 a.m., Battalion Chief Wayne K. Belitski said.

Mills apparently sparked the fire when his cigarette fell into the armchair, igniting a fire that spread through the living room. The fire was fueled by an oxygen supply that Mills was using to treat a chronic respiratory condition.

Investigators said the fire followed the path of the oxygen lines. That path went from the living room to the bedroom, where the primary tank was hooked up.

“It appears he was wearing an oxygen tube,” Craig Stevens, senior deputy coroner, said. “If he was smoking and wearing that at the same time, that’s a dangerous thing to do because oxygen is highly flammable.”

Mills is the second person in the past six weeks to die in a smoking-related fire in Ventura. Barbara Seymour, 62, was killed April 26 when a cigarette apparently started a fire in her Sidonia Avenue residence.

Charlotte O’Connor--who lives next door to Mills’ single-story, brown-shingled house in the 2400 block of Pierpont Boulevard--said she awoke about 7:40 a.m. Sunday to smoke billowing into her residence.

“All of the sudden we heard a bunch of people yelling and pounding on our walls, and when I got up all the smoke was in my bedroom,” she said. “I started banging on his door to try and wake him up, but it was all hot. We didn’t see any flames, just a lot of smoke.”

Neighbors said Mills was depressed over the death last year of his wife, and that he lived alone with his three cats.

“Ever since his wife passed away he was sort of upset,” O’Connor said. “I don’t think he was very happy. He seemed very lonely.”

O’Connor said Mills spoke often of returning to Europe, where, he told her, he still had many fans.

“He told us he liked to do Europe in his younger days, that he’d done stage (plays) and a couple of films,” she said. “He wanted to go back to Spain.”

It took 11 firefighters less than 10 minutes to put out the 7:40 a.m. fire. They dragged most of the damaged furniture to the front and rear yards.

At midmorning Sunday, two burned living room couches, still reeking of smoke, stood in front of the house. The living room was badly burned, with nothing left but a charred stereo system near the front door.

Stevens said Mills is survived by a son in Los Angeles and a stepdaughter in Arizona. Fire investigators estimated damage to the house at $30,000, and said another $30,000 in property was destroyed.

A woman, who said she walks by Mills’ house most mornings, was stunned Sunday when she heard about the death.

“Here was a guy with class,” Alva Holleman said. “He would always be sitting in his living room with his legs up, playing classical music full blast. I could hear it all the time. It’s very sad.”