Summerlin home fire may be arson

David Kihara

Friday, Aug. 12, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

The fire that burned through a 3,300-square-foot home in Summerlin early today apparently was intentionally set, relatives and neighbors of the homeowners said.

The fire was reported around 2:30 a.m. at the home in the 2300 block of Delina Drive, near Lake Mead Boulevard at Rampart Boulevard, and destroyed much of the second floor of the house.

The owners of the house, Ken and Mimi Matonovich, were in Hawaii at the time of the fire, said Ernie Freggiaro, 58, a business associate.

Freggiaro said Ken Matonovich owns the Foothill Express bar.

Family members and business associates said they believe arson caused the fire. "Someone broke in and started the fire," Mimi Matonovich's 41-year-old sister, Erica Yi, said.

Fire investigators at the scene refused to confirm or deny that arson was suspected.

Greg Gammon, deputy chief of operations for Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, said this morning that investigators were still looking into the cause of the fire.

"To say at this point that it was arson is premature," Gammon said.

He said the fire department is waiting for the fire investigators to issue their findings in a report before concluding what started the fire.

"Our policy isn't to guess at it," he said.

But Greg Hoffman, 57, who is the companion of Ken Matonovich's sister, said the fire "looks like the work of a sociopath." The fire apparently started in three locations in the upstairs of the house, including two bedrooms, Hoffman said.

In one bedroom, only the singed remains of some blankets on a bed indicated that a fire took place, while the next-door bedroom was entirely destroyed by the fire.

A neighbor, Aurora Andaya, who lives a few houses down from the Matonoviches, said she woke up at around 4:30 a.m. and saw flames billowing from the roof of the house.

Gammon said the fire was out by about 3 a.m. He couldnt; account for Andaya's statement that she saw flames at around 4:30 a.m., saying only she may have seen a flare-up, which is not uncommon two to three hours after a fire.

She said she woke up in time to watch people pushing the Matonoviches' two Mercedes-Benz sedans and one white SUV out of the home's garage.

Hoffman said he would hate to return from a vacation to a destroyed home. "Wouldn't your old lady have a cow if she came home to this?" he asked.