Answers Are Sought for Missed Fire Call

Neighbors in La Quinta awoke early Friday morning to the screams of two sisters and called 911. But it took 14 minutes before firefighters, who were a mile away, got there and the women died, officials said Sunday.

Riverside County fire officials have launched an investigation into how firefighters failed to receive the message that an apartment complex was ablaze in La Quinta, a Riverside County city in the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains. The firefighters responded only after receiving a telephone call from 911 dispatchers, after the dispatchers realized that an earlier page to the station had not gotten through.

Officials say it is unlikely that a faster response would have saved the lives of sisters Kathy and Tracy Tilton. It appears that they died within minutes, despite the heroic efforts of Riverside County sheriff’s deputies who had received a page from the dispatchers and arrived within two minutes.

Still, city officials want answers. The investigation, which will shed light on whether the miscommunication was due to human error or mechanical failure, is expected to last about a week.

Riverside County Fire Division Chief Brad Harris, a leader of the investigation, could not be reached Sunday.

The probe is emblematic of a common and frustrating dilemma for remote communities in the Inland Empire, many of which are growing rapidly but are still unable to afford their own fire services.

La Quinta, in the Coachella Valley about 30 miles southeast of Palm Springs, was a desolate desert town of 5,000 when it incorporated in 1982--and began contracting with Riverside County for fire services. Today, La Quinta has almost 25,000 people, country clubs and world-class golf, and bills itself to developers and tourists as a “Gem of the Desert”--but its fire service hasn’t changed much.

The city, which also contracts with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department to provide police protection, is negotiating a more detailed contract with the county to provide fire services.

The negotiations, among other things, are expected to result in a new fire station in the north end of the city, and they are expected to be completed before the budget year begins July 1.

“Fourteen minutes is certainly not acceptable,” La Quinta Mayor Pro Tem Stanley Sniff said. “Whether [a quicker response time] would have made a difference, we don’t know. But it certainly would have been better. Sooner is usually better than later.”

Sniff said the city will expect a full report about the miscommunication, which fire officials have described as an anomaly that may never have happened before.

Though Sniff said La Quinta has always been pleased with its fire services, he said the city would like assurances that this will never happen again. But he conceded that the city has few alternatives if it does not like the answers it receives.

The incident has made some in La Quinta suggest that it should have its own fire services. But Sniff said, at this point, “it’s somewhat uncertain whether we would be justified to have our own fire department,” or whether the city could afford it. Some desert cities, such as Indian Wells, have banded together with other communities to share fire services.

In any case, La Quinta has the right to expect prompt service, he said, and the incident has become “a part of the negotiation process” over the new contract.

“Our citizens, we’re paying for their protection and their security,” Sniff said. “The assurance we must have is that we pay, but they perform. The issue is cost for service.”

The fire, which has been tentatively classified as accidental, broke out shortly before 3 a.m. Friday. It quickly destroyed eight units, including the one where the sisters lived.

Sheriff’s Deputy Tommy Coleman, one of the deputies who arrived quickly after neighbors placed a call to 911, drove his patrol car under a balcony of the apartment where the sisters lived, Deputy Ray Verdugo, a sheriff’s spokesman, said Sunday.

Coleman climbed from the top of his squad car to the balcony and tried to help Kathy Tilton down. Apparently terrified, she would not budge. Coleman remained on the balcony until his jacket began to melt, Verdugo said, then was forced to jump.

Deputies and neighbors pleaded with the woman to follow him--to jump onto the roof of the patrol car. She refused, Coleman said, and apparently died within minutes.

No one else was injured.