Fatal fire cause stumps officials

KEN DIXON kdixon@ctpost.com
Article Launched: 12/09/2007 12:14:31 AM EST

BRIDGEPORT — Investigators on Saturday demolished a single-family West End house in an attempt to track down the cause of a Friday morning fire that killed three people.

Local officials refused to release the names and ages of the victims, who neighbors and friends identified as Arturo Iselo Sr., 29; his wife Anayelo Hernandez, 31; and 1-year-old son, Omar. Iselo was a house painter.

Fire Marshal Bill Cosgrove said that the damage from the intense blaze was so great that officials may never find the cause.

But he ruled out the possibility that a space heater might have started it, because none was recovered during the excavation. "With the space heater, we'd have metal and you can find that," Cosgrove said.

He said that there was too much damage to tell whether there were smoke detectors in the house.

After spending nearly five hours on the scene, Cosgrove said the fire started in a first-floor area, which neighbors said contained the family's kitchen. Iselo, Hernandez and their young son perished Friday morning when fire weakened the first-floor ceiling and sent them plummeting from the second floor bedroom, where they had huddled together.

City fire officials said that preliminary autopsies performed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington indicate that smoke inhalation was the cause of death.

"I have my suspicions as to the area of origin," Cosgrove said as he prepared to leave the scene and a city-contracted payloader finished

demolishing the building. He said that while witnesses said they heard an explosion, he could not confirm it.

The three-story brick-and-stucco structure at 2345 Fairfield Ave., which also housed a first-floor shop, was gutted in the early Friday blaze that also hospitalized three people and left 22 homeless.

"There's so much damage, I may never figure it out," Cosgrove said.

Cosgrove said that he, other fire officials and police interviewed about a half-dozen witnesses to the blaze, including the owner, listed as Luigi Jean-Pierre, of Stamford. The couple's two other sons, Arturo Jr., 15, and Jesus, 12, were released from Bridgeport Hospital Saturday afternoon, following treatment for smoke inhalation. They were interviewed by local police.

A third smoke-inhalation victim, identified as Juan Garcia, was also treated and released from the hospital.

"Most of our investigation was done from the outside, because it's not safe to be in there," Cosgrove said. "We can't let anybody inside. So we're interviewing people and trying to come up with a scenario of what happened."

The sidewalk to the building became a shrine as neighbors, passers-by and friends from as far away as Waterbury remembered the dead as good friends and hard-working parents.

"I used to buy CDs here," said Guillermo Martinez, a 38-year-old landscaper, who lives a few blocks away and, like Arturo Iselo Sr. and Hernandez, is Mexican-born. He said the tragedy is being felt throughout the city.

"It's not about being Mexican or whatever, it's a neighborhood thing," said Liz Rapone, a Puerto Rican who has lived in Bridgeport for about 20 years.

"I love Bridgeport, but it's a feeling everyone has, no matter where you come from, about these people," Rapone said. "No matter what, we're all immigrants and we have to help each other."

The fire started in the yellow house where the Iselos lived, behind and above the Flores y Discos El Centario. Flames spread to the houses on either side. Those structures were declared unfit for occupancy, forcing nearly two dozen people to seek shelter elsewhere.

By mid-afternoon Saturday, Danny Rodriquez, a 36-year-old mechanic, was filling a car with the remaining belongings of him and his extended family that occupied two apartments in the house to the east.

Rodriquez said his 11-year-old stepdaughter, Yadira Melendez, a pupil at the nearby Cesar A. Batalla School, couldn't sleep at around 2:15 a.m. Friday and went to watch TV, when she noticed the flames emerging from the Icelo home and warned him.

"We got out of the house at around the time the flames were coming toward our place," Rodriquez said.

In the remains of the store, hundreds of smoke-blackened discs could be seen hanging from the walls. The door remained open, and police were stationed around the clock for security.

On the utility pole in front of the building, 20 balloons were tied by mid-afternoon. A dozen roses were placed on the ground, and stuffed animals and several candles were left there and on the curb.

Daisy Colon, of Waterbury, brought a balloon and asked her daughter, sister and niece to pray for the Icelos.

Colon said she was a friend of the family, but hadn't seen them for a while. "They're like everybody. They wanted a better life for themselves and their family," said Colon, who believed the Icelos recently moved into the building after living in a nearby basement.

Colon's niece, Aisha Lebron, 15, a classmate of Arturo Iselo Jr. at Bullard-Havens Technical High School, said the boy is studying in the automotive course.

"He's quiet; he's nice," Lebron said.

Complete obituaries on Page F4

Danny Rodriguez tries to salvage some of his belongings in his third floor apartment in Bridgeport on Saturday. His building was one of three destroyed in a fatal fire along Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport overnight on Friday. (Christian Abraham/Connecticut Post)

Antonio Gozales salvages his mom's belongings in an apartment in one of the buildings severely damaged in a fatal fire along Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport overnight on Friday. Antonio's mom, Zoila Marquez-Rivera, lived in the second story apartment for about eight years. (Christian Abraham/Connecticut Post)

Heavy equipment tears down a home that was one of three damaged in a fatal fire along Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport overnight on Friday. At left is Bridgeport fire fighter Henry Polite and next to him is Bridgeport Fire Inspector Bill Cosgrove. (Christian Abraham/Connecticut Post)