GILROY
– City fire officials are blaming a cigarette butt for a fire
that gutted most of an 1129 Monte Bello Drive apartment and
destroyed all the two occupants’ belongings early Thursday
afternoon.
GILROY – City fire officials are blaming a cigarette butt for a fire that gutted most of an 1129 Monte Bello Drive apartment and destroyed all the two occupants’ belongings early Thursday afternoon.
“Right now, we’re saying the cause was careless discard of smoking material,” said Charles Hurley, division chief of the Gilroy Fire Department, Thursday afternoon. “It was just … some cigarette butts that got down into the couch from an ashtray.”
It was Anthony Legnon’s day off work, and after hanging around his apartment for part of the morning, he went back to sleep after his roommate left for lunch, he said. He woke at about 12:45 p.m. to the sound of a fire alarm.
The couch in the living room was in flames. Legnon, 21, grabbed an empty popcorn bucket left over from the night before, filled it with water and doused the couch two times. It didn’t do anything, he said. He then smothered the fire with a blanket, and that seemed to work – until he opened an outside door to let out the smoke. Then the couch and much of the room burst into flames. Legnon couldn’t call for help because the phone was on fire.
“The phone was gone; everything was on fire at that point,” Legnon said afterward, standing outside on the sidewalk, watching firefighters rip shingles to get at the smoldering roof over his second-floor balcony.
The flames gutted the living room and kitchen, and the two bedrooms sustained heavy heat and smoke damage. All belongings in all rooms were destroyed, Hurley reported. No one was injured.
“I got out with this,” Legnon said, indicating the pants and shirt he was wearing. “I borrowed shoes from a friend.”
The structure, however, was intact, and the neighboring apartments were spared. Firefighters had the fire under control by 1:16 p.m., 27 minutes after they were called to the scene.
“They really made a great stop,” Hurley said of the 30 firefighters who responded. “The fire was in the attic, but they stopped it.”
A blaze that gets into the attic of that type of apartment building has a good chance of burning the entire building from the top down, Hurley said.
There was a little bit of smoke damage to the apartment adjoining Legnon’s, but this dwelling was ventilated and can still be occupied, Hurley said. There also was some water “spotting on the ceiling” in the apartment below, which Hurley described as “really, really minor.”
Legnon said he had no idea how the couch caught fire.
Neighbor Marco Antonio was asleep in one of the apartments below when the fire began.
“I was dreaming the place was on fire, and then I woke up and it was on fire,” Antonio said. “I grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to get it out, but the flames were coming out the door.”
Legnon roused Antonio after fleeing his apartment and tried to alert the residents of the other two neighboring apartments, but they weren’t home. Legnon then ran and found property manager Catherine Jones, who called 911. A neighbor across the street already had called the fire in.
Jones and Legnon ran back to his apartment immediately after calling 911, but it already was engulfed in flames.
“It was lost,” Jones said. “It was unbelievable how fast (the fire) was. The flames were just shooting out the door.
“It’s very scary,” she said.
Standing on the sidewalk afterward, Legnon appeared calm and said his mind was clear.
“I’m a little pissed off but trying to stay cool,” he said. “Getting angry isn’t going to help anything.”
Legnon had lived in the apartment for about six months. He said he would probably sleep at a friend’s house Thursday night.
The apartment complex is insured, but Legnon and his roommate’s belongings are not. Among the items they lost were a new television set, a new entertainment center, a computer and several video game systems.
Fire departments from Gilroy, South County, the California Department of Forestry, San Jose, Santa Clara County and Hollister sent eight fire engines and one ladder truck to the scene.
The apartment complex is known as Bellagio Villas, formerly Monte Bello Apartments.
