O.C. House Fire Kills Mom, 2 Children

Despite frantic efforts by neighbors and family to save them, an Orange mother and her two young children were killed in a house fire early Friday morning when smoke from a kitchen blaze filled their small home after the three 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 front and back doors and stumbled through the smoke-filled house to discover the three all dead, along with the family dog.

Alerted of the fire by other neighbors, Silvers’ mother, who lives down the street, rushed in with a garden hose, her husband behind in a wheelchair.

The mother, Judy Silvers, came out of the house more slowly, family members and neighbors said, 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 have already concluded that the fire did not begin in the oven, stove or in kitchen appliances.

A smoke detector was found on the floor in a bedroom of the home, a working battery inside but disconnected, said fire operations chief Frank Frasz. It may have been kicked into the bedroom from the hallway by Judy Silvers, who tripped over it when she came in, he said.

The fire is considered one of the worst in recent Orange history.

“There was no air in the house, it was all smoke, I couldn’t breathe,” said Nick Brooks, 19, who with his brother and father ran into the house 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 fire trucks filled the streets, sobbing neighbors surrounded the grieving parents, around whom much of 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.

Silvers Remembered as an Energetic Mother

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

And even before the pastor of the family’s church arrived with a Bible under his arm, neighbors had taken up a collection.

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

His father, Lewis Silvers, is known for blocks around as the kind of neighbor who greets everyone daily, from the newest neighbor to the trash collector. Friends said he is the first to help people in trouble.

Sitting in his electric wheelchair, he 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.

She said the children will be missed.

“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.”

Jacy Tetirck, who works as a teacher’s aide at the school, had lived next door to the family for three years. Early Friday morning, she heard neighbors pounding on the door and ran to help. She thought at first that her CPR training might help save the spunky little boy she looked forward to seeing every day. But it was already too late.

‘My first thought was that he wasn’t alive. There was no movement and his hands were clenched,” she said. “When the Fire Department came, I just got out of the way and just silently stood there with the other neighbors and hoped, each of us praying in our own ways.”

Paramedics took the two children to Chapman Medical Center in Orange, but fire officials said they and their mother had died before they were found.

Smoke Filled Home Closed Up for Warmth

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

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

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

“During the winter people keep their houses shut, and the smoke just blankets the place,” Frasz said. “It’s insidious if you don’t have a working smoke detector.”

The fire occurred at a time when Shawn Silvers’ life had started to come together, neighbors and family members said.

She had recently broken up with a boyfriend and put her marital woes behind her. She had dedicated herself to Lance, who had been planning to play T-ball this spring, and Brittany, who was active in her dance class in preschool.

She spent much of her time with her parents, who lived less than a block away from the house she had rented for seven years. 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.”

Orange Councilman Mike Alvarez, who spent much of the morning meeting with the family and with fire officials, called Lewis Silvers “a neighbor’s neighbor.”

Kelly Pierce, a family friend who lives in Anaheim, said the Silvers helped create in the neighborhood just east of the Costa Mesa Freeway the sort of community rarely found these days.

“She loved life, and that’s what the whole tragedy is,” Pierce said of Shawn Silver. “It was taken away from her and her two kids. But they won’t be forgotten, that’s for sure.”

Even neighbors who had known the family only a little 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 Ave., No. 147, Orange, CA 92667.

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Other Fatal Fires

Killer fires have broken out in dozens of Orange County homes in the past 10 years:

1988

* April 3: Police believe a distraught mother sets fire to her Anaheim home, killing herself and her two daughters.

1989

* Jan. 27: A 78-year-old man dies in his Newport Beach home in a fire believed to have been caused by a burning cigarette or cigar.

* May 4: A fire that may have been started accidentally in a wastebasket by a burning cigarette or candle kills an Orange woman on her 29th birthday.

* June 8: Two infants die and two are injured in a fast-moving fire that guts a licensed family day-care center. Fire officials believe the blaze may have been caused by a faulty television set.

* Dec. 25: A 57-year-old woman is found dead in bed after a fire sweeps through the maid’s quarters of a Balboa Island home; investigators say the blaze is apparently caused by cooking utensils or candles.

1990

* Feb. 10: An elderly man who became a recluse after his wife’s death dies when fire guts his north Santa Ana home.

* March 17: A 24-year-old woman attempting to escape a fire in her Seal Beach home suffers second- and third-degree burns over 40% of her body; she dies March 26.

* April 3: A fire of undetermined cause kills a Garden Grove man in his home.

* May 11: A 3-year-old apparently playing with a cigarette lighter starts a fire in a Tustin apartment that kills his 4-year-old brother.

* Nov. 23: An 83-year-old woman dies when fire quickly burns the rear bedroom of her house; fire officials speculate she may have fallen asleep while smoking.

* Dec. 23: Smoke inhalation kills a woman in a Dana Point mobile-home fire, apparently ignited when she was smoking in bed.

* Dec. 29: An electric blanket catches fire and ignites other bed coverings, killing an 85-year-old Yorba Linda woman.

1991

* Jan. 7: A 75-year-old woman dies in a fire at her Westminster home, apparently caused by smoking in bed.

* March 30-31: Neighbors check on a 97-year-old Huntington Beach man and find him dead from smoke inhalation, caused by a small fire in his living room.

* May 28: A burning cigarette ignites a blaze in a Laguna Niguel condominium; a 73-year-old woman dies of smoke inhalation.

* Dec. 16: A burning Christmas tree ignites a Santa Ana home, killing a 54-year-old woman. A 41-year-old relative dies of injuries from the fire a day later.

1992

* Jan. 1: A 75-year-old Costa Mesa man dies and five people are injured in an early-morning house fire.

* Jan. 28: Propane explosion causes a fire that badly burns two people, both of whom later die.

* March 9: Stacks of magazines and newspapers ignite and badly burn an 88-year-old man in Rossmoor; he dies March 19 after suffering third-degree burns over 45% of his body.

* July 1: A 54-year-old Anaheim woman dies in a mobile-home fire.

* Nov. 20: Garden Grove house fire inflicts third-degree burns over 90% of a 64-year-old woman, who dies the next day.

* Nov. 30: A 61-year-old woman, bedridden and terminally ill, dies in her Huntington Beach home when her cat overturns a hot plate.

1993

* Jan. 4: A cooking fire sweeps through a Santa Ana home, killing three and injuring four.

1994

* Jan. 8: Smoke inhalation kills an 82-year-old man in his Costa Mesa apartment. Officials blame the blaze on a portable heater he used in his bedroom.

* April 26: Fire accidentally ignited by a 2-year-old playing with a cigarette lighter sweeps through a Buena Park apartment, killing the boy’s 6-year-old brother.

* Aug. 10: Burns and smoke-inhalation kill a 75-year-old man in Garden Grove after he bumps a stove and turns it on, igniting materials on top.

* Sept. 7: Fire at a neighborhood storage yard kills a 14-year-old boy who slipped past a caretaker for an apparent end-of-summer sleep-over with two friends. A burning camping lantern is believed to be the cause.

* Oct. 8: A 44-year-old man dies of smoke inhalation and a firefighter is injured when fire, sparked by an apparent electrical short, sweeps through a Costa Mesa home.

* Dec. 21: Fire of undetermined causes kills a 61-year-old disabled woman in Orange.

1995

* Jan. 22: Fire officials say heat from an incandescent bulb in a lamp ignites a blanket and chair, causing a fire that kills a 99-year-old Newport Beach woman.

* April 3: An 81-year-old La Palma women dies in a fire investigators believe started accidentally in her kitchen.

* Aug. 10: A burning candle on a vanity dresser causes a fire that kills a 57-year-old woman in Buena Park.

1996

* March 23: An elderly man dies when his Westminster mobile home burns.

* May 8: Two bodies burned beyond recognition are found in a hilltop mansion in Lemon Heights; a teenager who lives in the two-story home says the victims are his father and grandmother.

1997

* May 5: A 59-year-old Buena Park woman dies when she reenters a burning house in an attempt to rescue her pets.

* July 13: A 58-year-old La Habra man with a respiratory problem dies when a fire apparently started by his cigarette is accelerated by oxygen tanks.

* Dec. 22: Fire guts the Fountain Valley home of a 43-year-old restaurant owner. He and his son both die.

1998

* Jan. 23: A 71-year-old man dies trying to escape a house fire in Westminster. Officials believe he fell asleep while smoking.

* Oct. 5: Flames engulf an add-on home in Santa Ana, killing a 56-year-old man.

* Nov. 24: An 85-year-old Garden Grove man dies of smoke inhalation in November when fire breaks out in his rented bedroom. Several appliances, including a space heater, were used in the room.

Source: Times reports

Researched by LOIS HOOKER / Los Angeles Times