Kitchen Fire Kills Mother, 2 Children

Despite frantic efforts by neighbors and family to save them, a mother and her two young children died in a house fire early Friday when smoke from a kitchen blaze filled their small home after they had gone to sleep.

Shawn Silvers, 27, and her children, Lance Jugan, 6, and Brittany Jugan, 4, were found in their beds by neighbors who broke down the front and back doors and stumbled through the smoke-filled house to find the three and the family dog dead.

Alerted to the fire by other neighbors, Silvers’ mother, Judy Silvers, who lives down the street, rushed in with a garden hose. Moments later, Judy Silvers emerged from the house, dragging the bodies of her grandchildren to the front lawn and lying down beside them.

Orange Fire Department investigators are trying to determine whether an electrical short is responsible for the blaze. They already have concluded that the fire did not begin in the oven, stove or other kitchen appliance.

A smoke detector was found on the floor in a bedroom of the home, its battery disconnected, said fire operations chief Frank Frasz.

The device may have been kicked into the bedroom from the hallway by Judy Silvers, who tripped over it when she came in, he said.

“There was no air in the house, it was all smoke, I couldn’t breathe,” said Nick Brooks, 19, who ran into the house with his brother and father from their home across the street when they heard popping noises and smelled smoke about 6 a.m.

“They looked like they were asleep when we found them, but they were dead,” Brooks added. “The kids were in their pajamas. They all looked like they were tucked in their beds.”

As firetrucks filled the streets, sobbing neighbors surrounded Judy Silvers and her husband, who uses a wheelchair, around whom much of the community life in the close-knit neighborhood revolved.

Many recalled smelling smoke overnight but thinking nothing of it in a neighborhood in which many homes have fireplaces.

They recalled Shawn Silvers, divorced for two years and raising her children alone, as a vivacious woman unafraid to jump curbs on roller-blades behind her son, and not too shy to join her daughter in a sidewalk dance.

Neighbors took up a collection.

“I don’t know how all these people can be so kind to us,” said Shawn Silvers’ brother, Keith Silvers. “The way they’ve come through is just beautiful.”

His father, Lewis, is known as the kind of neighbor who greets everyone daily, from the newest neighbor to the trash collector.

Sitting in his electric wheelchair, Lewis Silvers lamented his inability to save his daughter and grandchildren.

“If I only could, I would have helped them,” he said.

Peggy Marchesi, a teacher at International Christian Montessori of Orange, where the two children attended classes, told their schoolmates of the deaths early in the afternoon.

“They were blond-haired, vivacious, attractive, charming children,” Marchesi said. “If you were in the grocery store, they would have come up and tried to engage you in conversation.”

At Uniweb Inc. in Orange, a steel shelving manufacturing plant where Shawn Silvers had been an office worker for the last four years, employees learned of the deaths in an early morning phone call from her father.

“I don’t think anyone really can talk about it,” said Vice President Cindy Davidson. “She was young and beautiful, two beautiful kids. She was wonderful.”

Frasz said the blaze that claimed three lives was small--it destroyed only about 30% of the kitchen, and did not spread to the rest of the house. But he said that with the home closed tight against the winter chill, smoke rapidly filled the structure.

Friends said Shawn Silvers had dedicated her life to her children, devoting any spare time to her parents, who live less than a block away. She cared for her father, a retired truck driver with diabetes and heart problems, and her mother, a retired grocery store clerk who is also ailing, said neighbor Pat Miller.

“They are a wonderful family,” Miller said. “If you need help, or something’s going on, Lew pretty much knows. He sits in his garage in his wheelchair every day, and you can count on him. And Shawn? Lots of people around here grew up with her. She was a beautiful person, a wonderful mother. Even though she was raising her kids alone, she always kept her head above water.”

Even neighbors who had known the family only slightly were devastated by the deaths.

“It’s just kind of awful to wake up and find a whole family dead,” said Randy Meyer, who lived a few houses away.

“I have a 5-year-old. I’m going to get her out of school and do something with her today. I just need to be with her.”

Donations to a charitable fund set up by neighbors can be sent to the Jugan Family Memorial, 1233 N. Tustin Avenue, No. 147, Orange, CA 92667.