No cause determined for fire that killed 12-year-old girl

Tuesday, March 23, 2004 | 9:06 a.m.

A medical examiner determined that a 12-year-old girl killed in a mobile home fire almost two weeks ago died of smoke inhalation, but investigators were not able to tell what caused the fire.

The girl has been identified by the Clark County coroner's office as Abigail Click.

Investigators considered several possible causes for the fire, including faulty electrical wiring, careless smoking and the use of a homemade cell phone battery charger, but the fire damage was too extensive to narrow down the cause any more than that, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

Investigators closed the case and ruled the cause of the fire as undetermined.

"It's one of those rare cases," Szymanski said. The 30 mph winds that were blowing that morning made the fire "like a blowtorch," he said.

The fire occurred March 11 in a mobile home in the trash-strewn back yard of a house in the 1600 block of East Ogden Avenue. Abigail lived there with her mother and her mother's boyfriend. The adults were not home when the fire started.

City records showed complaints dating from 1996 at the property, most stemming from trash and debris in the front and back yards.

Two teams of investigators probed the cause of the fire for more than a week with help from Metro Police's crime scene investigators and a coroner's investigator.

The county's fire sniffing dog, Wren, wasn't able to pinpoint where the fire started or what caused it, Szymanski said.