Man Dies in Fire, 7 Saved; Daughter Credits Premonition

An 82-year-old man died in an apartment fire, but his daughter said Sunday that a premonition helped her save other family members from perishing.

Fire officials said Anjok Brian apparently died shortly before midnight Saturday of smoke inhalation in a fire blamed on an electric portable heater in his bedroom in an apartment on Valencia Street. The victim’s daughter, her five children and a nephew escaped unhurt.

In an interview at a friend’s apartment Sunday, Brian’s daughter, Atlinda Clanre, credited a premonition she had and her father with saving the others in the family.

In a soft voice, the 37-year-old woman recounted how that night she had turned back while on her way to work the graveyard shift at a medical supply company because of something her 8-year-old son had said to her.

“He told me, ‘ You should be home with me tonight, Momma,’ ” she said. “Those words kept ringing in my head.”

So, she drove back home and checked that her five children, who range in age from 3 to 17, were asleep. Then, she went into a bedroom to lie down next to her two daughters.

A few minutes later, Clanre thought she heard her father “running around his room, saying something” unintelligible. She went to his bedroom and, upon opening his door, saw thick smoke, Clanre said.

“I couldn’t see anyone. I crawled on the floor, (searching) for him, but he wasn’t there,” she said. She then ran through the apartment, awakening her children and nephew, pushing them out of the door.

“I ran after them and counted, one, two, three, four, five, making sure everyone got out,” Clanre recalled, as she sat on the floor of her friend’s apartment, wrapped in a multicolor wool blanket. “I think, now, that my father had saved our lives. If I did not hear him in his bedroom, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Meanwhile, her nephew, Walter Clanry, 23, ran back upstairs and searched unsuccessfully for Brian. Undaunted, he went next door, enlisted a friend’s help and together they returned to Brian’s bedroom.

“We opened the door and the smoke was thicker and the fire was bigger,” Clanry said. “We crawled on the floor and tried to look for him. We called his name, and he didn’t answer.”

Brian had apparently died by then, fire officials said.

The blaze was confined to the bedroom and was contained within five to seven minutes, said Costa Mesa Fire Battalion Chief Jim Ellis. “Everything points to either bedding material or the curtains catching on fire due to the heater,” Ellis said.

“The primary concern that everyone has with a heating element is that it gets very hot,” Ellis said. “A portable heater is like an open flame, you don’t want it near anything that’s flammable.”

Clanre said she bought the portable heater several months ago because the apartment’s built-in heater emitted nauseous fumes.

“That one always smells bad and my kids always get sick from it,” she said.