Fire causes evacuation of about 60 residents

Will Oremus and Mary Manning

Friday, Sept. 5, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

One minute, the sky was clear and calm, and Robin Jones and her son Aaron, 12, were relaxing in a swimming pool.

The next minute: "I saw this huge cloud of smoke coming up, and then I saw flames," Jones said.

"It was amazing how quickly that cloud came up -- it was like Mt. St. Helens," she said.

The Joneses were among an estimated 60 people displaced by Thursday night's four-alarm fire at an apartment complex being built at Russell Road and Boulder Highway. The Jones house on Saddle Up Avenue backs up to a wall separating the Boulder Ranch houses from the Firenze Apartments, the site of the fire.

Jones and her son rushed into their home, grabbed their dog and some baby pictures, then jumped in their car and left the Boulder Ranch housing complex in a hurry.

"When we were leaving the complex, the flames were so hot I could feel the heat through the car door," Jones said.

She and her son drove to the Taco Bell on Boulder Highway, planning to meet her husband, but discovered that the road was blocked off. An hour later, they found themselves on the steps of Central Christian Church amidst a crowd of fellow evacuees.

Displaced residents of the Boulder Ranch housing complex were asked to sign in at Central Christian Church Thursday night, where an evacuation point had been set up by about 40 church volunteers and six or seven Red Cross volunteers. Volunteers worked until the wee hours of the morning to help people with medication and other emergency needs.

"As soon as I heard about the fire, I came to the church," volunteer Michele Borsack said.

Mike Bodine, the church's pastor, said the church's 155,000 square feet of space made it the largest disaster relief center in Henderson, so accommodating the evacuees was not a problem. Bodine noted proudly that most of the volunteers from Central Christian Church arrived without being called.

"Our church's intention has always been to help serve the community in any way we can," Bodine said. "We're a place for people to establish community right now. We'll be available if needed all night."

The apartments burned to the ground in one of the most damaging fires to hit Clark County in recent memory, but most of the Boulder Ranch houses were untouched.

That didn't stop people from worrying, though. When Joel and Kayla Gilmore spotted the smoke and flames as they were driving home, their first thought was that their house might be ablaze.

After navigating their way through a logjam of traffic, the Gilmores reached the entrance to the complex and found their way blocked by police.

"I went and asked the police if they'd let us in, and they said, 'Hurry,' " Kayla Gilmore said. "I grabbed the wedding pictures and my grandma's blanket, and my husband grabbed the toothpaste and the clothes."

As the Gilmores walked from their house to the church, Joel Gilmore said, "You take a lot of things for granted every day, and then one day, you're saying, 'All right, what can I fit in a ... backpack?"

Leiani Hardy refused to leave her Boulder Ranch home west of the fire zone.

"My husband and I watched the fire, we heard the police going from house to house asking people to leave on their bullhorns, but we decided to stay," Hardy said. "Where's a thunderstorm when you need one?"