Father, Son Killed in O.C. Fire

The screams from the house next door awoke Jason Keys at 3 a.m. Monday.

As he ran toward them, he watched as his neighbor and her 13-year-old son leaped from the second floor of their home, while smoke and flames engulfed it.

Then he caught sight of the father, who was surrounded by thick clouds of smoke spewing from the upstairs window.

“I was screaming out at the top of my lungs, ‘Jump! Jump!’ ” Keys said. “He was swinging his hands and arms in front of his face, trying to push smoke away, and it looked like he couldn’t breathe. I didn’t see him after that.”

The father, Salim “Sam” Akroush, 43, the owner of a well-known restaurant in Westminster, and his 15-year-old son, Faris, had helped Faris’ mother and younger brother jump to safety. But the fire engulfed them before they could follow. Their bodies were found in the same bedroom.

Shocked neighbors gathered Monday in front of the gutted home in the 9700 block of La Tierra Circle, near Brookhurst Street and Slater Avenue, trying to fathom what had happened.

“I didn’t realize anyone else was in the house until later,” said Terry Smith, who had grabbed a hose and watered down wooden fences and large trees to help contain the fire. He and other neighbors learned later that Akroush and his son had died in the blaze.

Fountain Valley Battalion Chief Paul Summers said firefighters initially believed that the blaze, which caused about $500,000 worth of damage, had started in the Christmas tree. But they later ruled that out and began focusing on a desktop lamp, resting on an end table in the family room, as the fire’s point of origin. Investigators were trying to determine whether the smoke detectors had been working.

Smith’s daughter, Kelley, 16, a junior at Fountain Valley High School, where Faris was a sophomore, recalled that her father woke first and told others to dial 911 while he ran to help.

“Everybody was screaming and crying out there,” she said. “It was pretty bad.”

Keys carried the mother, Samar, out of danger to the street, where she was reunited with a daughter, Sana, 19, and one of her daughter’s girlfriends, Souria Hassen, 21.

The young women had been sleeping downstairs when the fire broke out and had escaped through the front door, fire officials said.

The 13-year-old boy, Fayez, was in shock and bleeding and needed assistance standing up, Keys said.

The mother and son were in fair condition and being treated for smoke inhalation and cuts and other injuries at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Beverly Gammoh, a cousin, said the boy had to have stitches on his palms, which were injured when he jumped. His mother’s foot was fractured in her fall, and she will be hospitalized at least a week, officials said.

Kelley’s brother, Kevin, who also ran to give aid, said that as daylight broke he could see the extent of destruction the fire caused.

“You could stand, look through a broken window and see clear straight through the house. The fire had taken out the walls on the inside,” he said.

Keys’ mother-in-law, Patrice Tedesco, said the house was “fully engulfed with thick smoke coming out of all the windows, which had exploded” from the heat.

As neighbors gathered outside the fire-blackened home, they couldn’t help but notice the Akroushes’ Christmas decorations, including a cardboard snowman with the greeting “Happy Holidays.”

“Faris and his brother were both looking forward to Christmas,” said Gammoh, who manages the Parkside Cafe on Brookhurst Street in Westminster, which Sam Akroush owned.

Gammoh said the family, originally from Jordan, is Catholic and had put up Christmas decorations throughout the four-bedroom, three-bath house, including a big Christmas tree and gifts, most of which were destroyed in the blaze.

About 30 firefighters from Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach fought the blaze.

At the Parkside Cafe, Gammoh said news that the friendly owner had died in the fire shocked workers and customers.

Luther Ward, 63, of Westminster, a cafe regular, expressed his sorrow.

“He was friendly and just a nice guy,” Ward said of Akroush. “This is where I have my coffee every day. I remember once I got sick and didn’t come in here for a while. Well, the next time I came in, Sammy got worried and he wanted to know if I was OK.

“I ordered something from the menu,” Ward recalled, “and because I couldn’t eat it because I was sick, Sammy had the waitress take it away, find something that I could eat, and he brought it out to me. Basically, I considered him a friend.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Fire Safety

Reducing fire hazards, installing smoke detectors, devising an evacuation plan and learning how to escape a fire are basics to protecting against the loss of property and lives. Some ways to help prevent a tragedy:

* Smokers should use extreme caution and never smoke in bed

* Do not overload electrical outlets

* Install smoke detectors on each level of the home; test and replace batteries annually

* Never disconnect a smoke detector

* Plot fire escape routes from each room; buy and store chain ladders next to upstairs windows

* Hang fire extinguishers bearing the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) label at key spots upstairs and downstairs. Teach every family member how and when to use them

* If fire occurs, stay calm; get everyone out of the house

* If there is smoke, crawl on hands and knees to get below the smoke

* Get out of the house to a designated meeting spot; do not go back into a burning building

* Call 911 from a neighbor’s house

Source: Fountain Valley Fire Department and Times reports