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Family devastated by house fire

Tampa fire officials think a 2-year-old playing with a cigarette lighter may have started a blaze that gutted an Ybor City house.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published October 29, 2005

TAMPA - Thanksgiving would've been at Traci Wilson's house this year. Familiar scents of deep fried turkey, collard greens and sweet potato pie would've sweetened the crisp November air outside her Ybor City home as family members spilled into the back yard.

But Friday morning, relatives had to rush to her home a month early. They gathered outside and watched Tampa firefighters try to save what they could of the house 2712 E 17th Ave. It didn't look good.

The roof was caved in, the side wall melted off and the facade blackened by ash. Damages totalled to about $135,000.

"All my furniture was paid for. Oh, God," Wilson said in tears. Her husband, Phillip, put his arm around her.

Wilson's niece Nikiesha Menendez, 19, awoke to the beeping of a smoke alarm. Menendez spends Friday mornings at Wilson's house to get her 71-year-old grandmother Betty Menendez ready for dialysis treatments.

Menendez saw that the living room couch was on fire. She awoke Wilson, who was asleep in her bedroom, sick with a swollen eye, and got her 2-year-old son out of her house.

Wilson tried to put the fire out herself.

"She got a pot, threw water on it. It just, like, whoosh," Menendez explained to fire investigator Charles Thompson of Tampa Fire Rescue. Thompson told her you can't put out fires in couches or mattresses with just pots of water. Flames get inside the upholstery and kindle there.

Many people waste valued time trying to put fires out themselves, instead of calling for help right away, Thompson said.

By the time the women were able to carry the bedridden grandmother, who weighs about 200 pounds, out of the home, the windows were beginning to break.

"We have nothing," Wilson said. "Everyone got out okay, but it's just starting from ground zero."

Wilson, who works at a beauty salon, is the main breadwinner for the six people living in her household. Her husband, Phillip, is between jobs.

Phillip Wilson was on his way from taking his 20-year-old son Dylan Mitchell to a job interview at Best Buy when they saw the smoke from the distance.

"I said "Let's follow that smoke.' The closer I got, I said "Man, I hope that's not our house,' " he said. As a child, his mobile home burned to the ground, leaving his mother and siblings homeless.

Fifteen relatives milled about the back of the house, consoling the Wilsons.

Aunt Miriam Allen offered the 2-year-old boy some candy. Authorities think the young child accidentally set the couch on fire while playing with a cigarette lighter. The family will be referred to the Hillsborough County Juvenile Firesetter's Program for counseling.

The American Red Cross is assisting the family with temporary clothing and shelter.

Phillip Wilson's mother, Emma Edwards, also offered to take in the displaced family, but he said there's not enough room to accommodate him, his wife, her sick mother, his daughter, his son and his son's girlfriend in the home of Edwards, who works as a Farrell Middle School custodian.

"This is devastating," he said.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813-226-3354 or at azayas@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 29, 2005, 01:44:11]