10 die in fire at home for mentally disabled

From doorways and passing cars, people stared all day Monday at what little remained of the Anderson Guest House. Blackened bits of wood. Smoking cinderblocks. The scorched, unrecognizable personal effects left behind by victims of a fire that swept through the residential-care facility.

The blaze that broke out just before 1 a.m. Monday nearly gutted the one-story residence for the mentally disabled, killing an Anderson employee and nine residents and injuring 24 others. At least 19 residents were treated at local hospitals, most for smoke inhalation.

Missouri public safety officials said late in the day that they were uncertain of the blaze’s origin. State arson investigators were dispatched to the site near Joplin, in southwestern Missouri.

Gov. Matt Blunt, who was briefed by fire officials near the scene of the collapsed building, said the site was “being treated as a suspicious fire,” but he added that “we are not ruling out anything.”

Greg Carrell, an assistant state fire marshal, said late Monday that a small fire had flared inside one of bedrooms Saturday and was quickly contained. But he said officials did not know if there was any connection to Monday’s blaze.

“We’re still waiting to hear the details of what actually happened,” Carrell said. “It’s a horrific tragedy.”

It seemed as if all of Anderson, population 1,900, turned out over the course of the day to stare at the ashen remains of the guest house. Small columns of smoke wafted up from the smoldering debris past a copse of sweet gum trees.

Neighbors said flames rose as high as 30 feet from the north side of the low-slung building within minutes after the first alarms sounded just after 1 a.m.

“The entire neighborhood was glowing orange,” said Fred Mitchell, 75, who ran to his door when he heard the thud of helicopter rotors. “I thought the entire town was on fire.”

Steven Spears, 48, was roused by the “low rumbling” of spreading flames. At least a dozen residents of the facility appeared to have escaped on their own, Spears said. Many emerged coughing, vomiting, and covered with soot.

“It was so hot it felt like my skin was burning, even from next door,” Spears said.

Within minutes, a group of firefighters entered the burning structure, then retreated outside carrying unconscious residents. Emergency helicopters landed quickly to carry them to nearby hospitals, but Spears said he saw six bodies covered by sheets. After the fire was contained, firefighters recovered another four bodies from inside the collapsed building, Carrell reported.

State health authorities, who joined public safety officials at the scene sifting through inspection records, were overwhelmed by the heavy toll.

“We’ve never had anything like this happen in any mental health facility in Missouri,” said Bob Bax, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Mental Health. “It’s shocking that so many people could have been hurt in one fire.”

Bax and other officials identified the owners of the facility as the Joplin River of Life Ministries, a group that had owned the center under another name before 1999. The nonprofit owns three similar residential care units in southwest Missouri. Bax said previous assessments of the group’s mental health program had raised no concerns.

After a March inspection, the operation was cited for failing to do proper background checks on its staff, said Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Gonder said she knew of “no known concern” about fire safety.

In 2003, the department cited Joplin River of Life for a “malfunctioning fire alarm system” in its “Guesthouse II” residential care facility in nearby Joplin. Missouri state records indicated that the sister facility “failed to repair a malfunctioning fire alarm system for at least two weeks and did not implement a fire watch during that time.”

Joplin’s owner, Robert Dupont, issued a statement late Monday expressing his sorrow and adding that the surviving residents were being cared for by local agencies. “This is a very tragic situation that has saddened us all at Joplin River of Life Ministries,” Dupont said.

As the acrid odor of charred wood hung over the fire site, Alan Schorzman, 55, stared disconsolately. His brother Donald, 57, died in the fire.

Schorzman said coroner’s officials told him that his brother had succumbed to smoke inhalation in his bed. The officials speculated that Donald Schorzman died in his sleep.

“I hope that’s true,” Schorzman said. “I hope he didn’t feel anything.”

Schorzman said his brother had been diagnosed at 18 as schizophrenic and bipolar and had become a ward of the state. Alan Schorzman always brought his brother to his home in Joplin for holiday dinners. The two were together for Thanksgiving, laying plans over turkey and stuffing for Christmas.

Schorzman called his brother again Sunday, also a family ritual. “Don seemed upbeat and looking forward to coming home again,” Schorzman said.

Donald Schorzman had been a regular visitor to the Anderson Animal Hospital across the street from the assisted-care home. He had taken in a stray kitten he named Fred, but turned it over to the hospital because he could not keep it at the home. Schorzman visited the animal hospital every day, playing with Fred and other cats.

“Don was our favorite,” said receptionist Patrice Lasiter. “He would come by and visit with us, always cheerful, always grinning.”

But on Monday, Lasiter and her colleagues at the hospital were in tears, grieving for an old friend they were already missing.

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p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com

steve.braun@latimes.com

Hufstutter reported from Anderson, Mo., and Braun from Washington. Researcher John Beckham in Chicago contributed to this report.