Cause of deadly blaze unknown

Neighbors heard the screams before they smelled the smoke or saw the flames that consumed a mobile home and three small children Tuesday morning.

"I heard little noises, like a child crying," Pam Pulver, the mother of a 17-month-old son, wept. "I thought it was my baby. I don't want to think it was the children."

Pulver lives in a mobile home across the street and three or four lots north of the double-wide that had been occupied by 25-year-old Elizabeth Gonzales and her four sons, Omar Jr., 5, Orazio, 4, Christian, 3 and Ilan, 18 months. Elizabeth and Ilan were the only survivors.

Gonzales and her husband, Omar, are separated and in the process of getting a divorce.

The fire has been ruled accidental, starting in a loveseat in the northeast corner of the 24-by-60-foot mobile home. It was reported at 7:27 a.m.

Clark County Fire Department investigators are stumped as to what ignited the blaze.

"Our investigators have determined it is accidental but we don't know if it was a match, a lighter or a lightening bolt that started the fire," Clark County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky said.

"And because the only eyewitnesses are dead, we may never know the ignition source."

One boy was found in one bedroom and two others were found in another.

The Clark County Coroner is set today to conduct autopsies on the boys, but because the bodies were so badly burned, it is not clear which child is which. The coroner will try to determine whether toxic fumes, smoke inhalation, burns from the fire or other factors contributed to the deaths.

Gonzales escaped from her burning home at the 107-lot Casa Linda mobile home park, 5250 E. Lake Mead Blvd., by breaking out her bedroom window and crawling through it with her infant son under her arm, La-Sky said.

"We want to make it clear that the mother tried to save all of her children," La-Sky said. "She suffered severe lacerations on her arms breaking out the windows (at the rear of the mobile home) to get to them. The flames were too great for her to get back in."

La-Sky called the effort "valiant, but futile."

Breaking a window tends to intensify the fire, feeding the flame with more oxygen. It is not recommended.

The mother and surviving child were rushed to University Medical Center, where they were treated and released Tuesday afternoon.

La-Sky said the whole family was awake when the fire started.

Sixty-year-old Beatrice Spagnuolo, who lives in a mobile home on the north side of the Gonzaleses, was closest to the screams as the fire raged.

"At first, I thought nothing of it," Spagnuolo said. "The kids were always getting up early and she would scream at them to get back inside."

But there was something different about the screams this chilly, windy morning.

"I looked out the window and saw flames at the front of her mobile home. She was screaming and trying to break the bedroom windows at the back," Spagnuolo said.

Spagnuolo called 911 then grabbed her 6-year-old grandson, who spent the night with her, and ran outside.

"My main concern was my grandson. I got the little guy out," she said.

The skirting on the north side of Spagnuolo's mobile home melted. The siding was covered with soot. But the residence was saved by a neighbor who used a garden hose to keep a steady stream of water on the mobile home until firefighters arrived.

The Gonzales home, however, was destroyed in minutes.

La-Sky said mobile homes are very dangerous places to live.

"They're built out of cheap, highly flammable material," he said. "We once did a study that showed 75 percent of the mobile homes in Clark County don't have smoke detectors."

He said he did not know if that was a factor in this fire.

Ron Lynn, assistant director of the Clark County Building Department, said smoke detectors are the single biggest issue in house fires, whether mobile homes or standing structures.

To help prevent the spread of fires within mobile home neighborhoods, Lynn said, the homes must be at least 20 feet apart.

According to statistics provided by the National Fire Protection Association, people are far more likely to die in a mobile home fire than any other kind of residential fire.

The national fatality rate for manufactured homes between 1991 and 1995, the most recent figures available, revealed 2.0 deaths for every 100 mobile home fires and 0.8 per 100 fires in other residences.

Larry Schneider, manager of the mobile home park, said he passed the Gonzales residence about 7:20 a.m. and noticed nothing wrong.

But seven minutes later, Spagnuolo was calling 911.

Neighbors described the young woman as a devoted mother.

Sun reporter Ed Koch contributed to this report.

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