Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.
As flames leapt out the window of the apartment next door, Myeshia Hawthorne dropped her three children from her second-floor balcony toward an outstretched hand reaching through the thick black smoke.
"We couldn't go down the stairs because broken glass from the windows was all over the place," Hawthorne said this morning at the Petersen Elementary School cafeteria where she, her children and dozens of other residents were evacuated after a three-alarm blaze swept through her building at the Courtyard Village Apartments near Desert Inn Road and Maryland Parkway.
"There was no way down but then I heard someone yelling at me to drop them over," Hawthorne said. "All I could see was a hand reaching through the smoke but every time I saw that hand I dropped another kid over."
The smoke was so thick that the 29-year-old telemarketer couldn't see the ground and wasn't sure where the kids would land, she said. The putrid smell of it had awakened Hawthorne.
"When I smelled the smoke, I started unplugging our appliances because I thought there might be a short somewhere," Hawthorne said. "But the smoke kept coming and, when I opened the door, the apartment next door was on fire.
"None of our smoke detectors went off, and we have no fire extinguishers or sprinklers in the apartments."
Hawthorne said she quickly woke up everyone in the apartment, including her three children ages 6, 9 and 13, and a visiting friend and her four children, ages 9, 11, 13 and 15. The kids went over the balcony in whatever they had been sleeping in, most without shoes, Hawthorne said.
No residents were injured in the 1 a.m. blaze, Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach said, but one firefighter broke his heel. Firefighters estimate $4 million to $6 million in damage to three of the buildings, or about 18 apartments, at the complex at 1100 Dumont Blvd.
Hawthorne said the friend who was staying with her was about to move to Florida with her children.
"We lost everything, and my friend lost everything, too," Hawthorne said. "All of our kids' clothes, everything we had."
Hawthorne was being helped by American Red Cross this morning, and the apartment complex managers told her they would move her family to a new apartment in the complex, she said. The children went down the street to find clothes and shoes in a donation box at the Boys and Girls Club at Dumont Boulevard and Cambridge Street.
The fire started in building J, near the north end of the complex, and spread to three of the brick and stucco buildings, Leinbach said, causing the Spanish tile roofs to partially collapse. It was upgraded to a three-alarm fire about 1:20 a.m. Eighty firefighters and 20 units from the Clark County and Las Vegas fire departments had the flames contained by about 3 a.m., Leinbach said.
"It's a miracle that nobody got hurt, not even smoke inhalation," Leinbach said. "You could expect that during the day, but during the middle of the night that's amazing. The fire crews did a great job."
Sam Jackson, 44, and Donna Clark, 50, live in one of the buildings facing the one where the fire started.
"I had just laid down when I heard the sirens and smelled smoke," Jackson said outside the complex this morning. "The next thing I knew, firefighters were yelling at us to evacuate."
Clark said she at first thought the sirens were "business as usual" for the neighborhood.
"When we opened the door, there was just flames everywhere coming off the building."
The pair said they were up all night watching firefighters.
"The smoke was so thick that you needed a respirator to stand out here on the sidewalk," Jackson said. "You couldn't see your hand in front of your face."
The smell of smoke still permeated the air at 8 a.m. today, and firefighters were still working extinguish all of the smoldering embers and minor flare-ups, Leinbach said.
Residents in several neighboring buildings were unable to return to their homes and the power was off throughout most of the complex, Leinbach said. Firefighters did not yet know the cause, Leinbach said.
Several Southwest Gas trucks were also at the scene this morning.
Firefighters and the American Red Cross set up a temporary shelter a few blocks away at Petersen Elementary School, 3650 Cambridge St., where Hawthorne was this morning.
Red Cross officials said about 50 residents have been helped at the shelter and they would be working to help families find better temporary lodging. Leinbach said fire officials were not sure when residents would be able to return to the undamaged buildings in the apartment complex.
Red Cross volunteers arrived on the scene at about 3 a.m., spokeswoman April Mastroluca said, and they brought many of the residents breakfast from McDonald's. They were also making arrangements for lunch and were giving out vouchers for food and basic needs such as clothes and beds, Mastroluca said.
"We're just trying to take care of these people's needs," Mastroluca said. "Hopefully the community will come through to help them."
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