The cause of the fire is unknown, but her husband thinks her smoking may have destroyed their 7-month-old house.
By JANETTE NEUWAHL and KINFAY MOROTI
Published August 11, 2004
LARGO - Francis Cornibert buried his face in his hands. He couldn't bear to look.
"How could this happen to me?" he wondered. "This is my life; this is what I've been working for."
The modest pink block house with curved white awnings that Cornibert had spent years trying to pay for was gutted Tuesday after a fire destroyed the home, starting in the bedroom he shared with his wife, Mary.
Mary Cornibert told neighbors she was reading the newspaper in bed about 2:50 p.m. Tuesday when she rolled over and saw a flame. She ran outside to the home of her neighbor, Mary Green, yelling that there was a fire. Green called 911.
"I thought, "Oh my god' ... The flames coming out the side of her window almost caught the roof of my house," said Green, 51. "(The fire department) got here pretty quickly, so we were lucky."
About 15 firefighters from the Largo and Belleair Bluffs fire departments arrived at the home at 11835 Ulmerton Road around 2:55 p.m. The fire was contained within 10 minutes, said Frank Pacchiarotti, district chief on the scene.
Mrs. Cornibert escaped with no burns, but was taken by ambulance to Largo Medical Center for treatment for smoke inhalation. Fire Inspector Frank Bignotti said Mrs. Cornibert was a bit lethargic when he arrived and had smoke stains on her upper lip. Mrs. Cornibert was treated and discharged Tuesday afternoon.
Her husband was notified of the fire about 3:15 p.m. at his workplace at Seminole Welding.
He said that his wife was diabetic and may have had low blood sugar at the time the fire started. She also may have been smoking in the couple's 7-month-old home, Cornibert said.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation late Tuesday afternoon. Fire inspectors could not even enter the home until about two hours after firefighters put out the fire because the house was still too hot, Bignotti said.
Bignotti estimated the house was probably worth about $65,000.
Cornibert said he did not know where he would sleep Tuesday. He moved to the United States in 1989 from St. Lucia in the Caribbean. The rest of his family lives in Miami, he said.
