House Fire Kills Woman; Husband OK

Fire investigators are checking whether a Fountain Valley invalid’s cigarette may have started the early morning fire that killed her Monday.

Marie Rodgers, 67, was found severely burned amid the rubble on the floor, the spot where the fire started, said Fountain Valley Fire Marshal Mark Haskell. A walker and wheelchair were found nearby, he said.

Her husband, Frank, also 67, escaped the fire unharmed.

Helen Sacchette, who lives across the street, said she saw Frank Rodgers shirtless, in shorts and carrying a flashlight trying to get into the burning house.

“He was just screaming, ‘My wife, my wife, she’s handicapped, and I can’t get her,’ ” Sacchette said. “By the time the Fire Department got there, the flames were coming out of the front door.”

James Shattles, who lived next door to the Rodgerses for 35 years, said Marie Rodgers used a wheelchair for the past decade. “She was a good person,” he said. “Warmhearted.”

Rodgers had difficulty sleeping, so she often read and watched TV late at night, he said. She especially liked to listen to gospel music.

Her husband was retired from Hughes Aircraft, Shattles said, and had a part-time job.

Frank Rodgers had just finished renovating the house, and was about to put on a new roof, Shattles said.

Hours after the fire was extinguished, arson investigators and police dogs arrived in the quiet neighborhood at the 16000 block of Maple Street. Curious neighbors stood in clusters behind the yellow tape and talked about the previous night’s events.

Haskell said Rodgers, a heavy smoker, customarily slept in the living room near the back of the split-level house, while her husband slept above the garage.

The victim’s husband told police that after he smelled smoke from his bedroom, he came downstairs and escaped through a door that went into the garage.

Next-door neighbor Liz Hiles said she was awakened by her dog’s incessant barking which, on this night, sounded unusual.

“As soon as I went outside, I noticed plumes of smoke coming from the eaves,” she said. Her husband, Roger, she said, immediately began hosing down their roof, only a few feet from the fire.

Hiles said her bedroom window backs up against the room where Marie Rodgers slept, and cigarette smoke often wafted into her own room.

Haskell said that the day before the fire, paramedics had been called to the house to take Rodgers to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

The fire, which was under control in about 20 minutes, gutted the downstairs interior of the home and left the upstairs area heavily smoke damaged. A dollar estimate of the damage was unavailable.

One firefighter received a minor electrical shock and another suffered heat blisters on his ears.