Fire Kills Elderly Disabled Couple

An elderly couple perished in a freak early-morning fire Friday when they were trapped in the rear bedroom of the house they had lived in for 43 years, authorities said.

The couple’s disabilities prevented them from escaping what appeared to be a small blaze that neighbors had nearly extinguished with a garden hose by the time firefighters arrived shortly after 6 a.m.

George Elliot Harkins, 84, was found dead in the beige stucco house at 375 S. Batavia St.--next door to the Ronald McDonald House.

Firefighters were able to rescue his wife, 81-year-old Estella Marie Harkins, from the smoke-filled house, but she was pronounced dead minutes later at UCI Medical Center in Orange. Both died of smoke inhalation, said Orange Battalion Chief Frank Frasz.

Investigators Friday were still trying to determine the cause of the fire, Frasz said, but he noted that the Harkinses did not smoke.

Relatives of the couple gathered inside the Ronald McDonald House to pray and console one another.

“This is still the biggest shock for us,” said Joel Harkins, the couple’s 57-year-old son, who lives in Fullerton. “My folks were good people, the kind of people that make this country great. We don’t know yet how we’re going to deal with our loss.”

He said the next-door neighbor called him shortly before 6 a.m. to report that smoke was coming out his parents’ bedroom. The same neighbor had already called 911.

Frasz said neighbors had almost extinguished the fire with a garden hose before firefighters arrived.

A few hours later, firefighters removed a burned mattress from the rear bedroom. George Harkins was found in a corner of the bedroom. He had suffered burns over 80% of his body.

There were no visible signs of fire damage to house. Frasz said it appeared the couple were awakened by the fire “and they breathed in deadly superheated gases.”

Their disabilities prevented them from escaping in time, Frasz said.

Estella Harkins had recently broken her hips and needed a wheelchair. Her husband, who suffered a stroke almost 20 years ago, used a walker.

Despite their disabilities, the couple insisted on living in their own home, their children said.

Carolyn Spoon, the couple’s 55-year-old daughter from Corona, said she and her brother checked on her parents several times a week.

The Harkins moved into the house in 1953 when the neighborhood was a mixture of citrus and avocado groves. Joel Harkins said his parents cherished the house because it was built in 1933, the year the couple got married in their native Oklahoma.

Even after St. Joseph’s Hospital added a new wing across the street, and the Ronald McDonald House built a taller building next door, the couple decided to stay put, the son said.

“They always said this house was built for them and that they never wanted to leave,” the son said.

After his stroke in 1977, George Harkins, a retired employee of the county’s road department, remained active, tending flowers in his garden and pruning trees in the backyard, often with a chain saw, his son said.

The couple’s clergyman, Tom Long, an associate pastor of the Zion Christian Center on Cambridge Street, stopped by the Ronald McDonald house to pray with the family.

“Because they were strong Christians, we know they’re in a better place,” Long told the family.

Tears welled up in Joel Harkins’ eyes as he told relatives and reporters how his mother had planned the couple’s funerals a few years ago because she didn’t want to burden anyone with the task.

“We never thought that both of them would go at the same time,” he said.