Fire destroys family's home

Their apartment complex says it is not responsible for fires and gives them seven days to leave.

[Times photo: Janel Schroeder] Eadie Sipple, 16, left, comforts her aunt Eadie Ramirez as she sorts through pictures found in the fire's aftermath at 8524 Daffodil Drive.

By MARY CARMICHAEL

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 1, 2000

HUDSON -- Frank Cap waited and waited, but his cab never came.

He had called a car service to pick him up at his friend Arlene Sipple's Anclote Villas apartment late Sunday night but had given the company the wrong address. So Sipple offered him a place on the couch.

Cap dozed off, but around 3:30 a.m. he woke up and smelled something strange.

Smoke.

There was thick black smoke billowing from Sipple's bedroom. The smoke curled up from the burning mattress where she lay, still sleeping next to a brass bedside lamp that had shorted out and caused the electrical fire. Sipple's smoke detector didn't go off.

And it was smoke that could have killed her if Cap hadn't woken her in time and rushed her out the door.

Apartment 4, 8524 Daffodil Drive, now stands completely gutted. In the rush for her life, Arlene Sipple forgot to grab the things most dear to her. All she has left are a few charred Polaroids of her three children, her boys' athletic trophies and some blackened angel figurines. Almost all the rest -- clothes, furniture, appliances -- is ruined, some of it beyond recognition.

But she is alive, thanks to Cap.

"I'm just glad I was there to get her out," Cap, 32, said on Monday afternoon as he surveyed the rubble, rubbing his forehead with a blistered hand. After he shook Sipple awake, Cap -- still half-asleep and wearing nothing but boxer shorts -- ran back in and tried to put out the fire, then ran to the neighbors' doors and got them out, too.

Cap still doesn't know who called 911. He said it only took a few minutes for the whole bedroom to burst into flames.

The fire spread from there, and smoke crept throughout the house, blackening the walls and furniture. No room was untouched.

In another small miracle, all three of Sipple's children -- 16-year-old Eadie, 14-year-old Jesse and 12-year-old Michael -- had decided to spend the night out with family members.

Sipple, 37, knows she was lucky, but the ordeal is far from over. The Red Cross is paying for her to stay in a Days Inn until Thursday, but she is afraid she will have nowhere to go after that.

Anclote Villas is a federally subsidized housing complex, and Sipple said the managers have told her she has seven days' notice to take what remains of her belongings and leave. Sipple asked them to put her up in vacant apartments, but they refused, she said, telling her only that a provision in her lease says the complex is not responsible for apartment fires.

On-site managers for the complex did not answer their office door Monday afternoon or return phone messages.

Pasco Fire Rescue District 2 Chief Thomas Santel said that if Sipple's smoke detector was battery operated, the company may be in the legal right.

"But I'm not responsible for this," Sipple said, holding up two pieces of brass wire covering that broke off the faulty lamp. "My whole life is gone."

- Mary Carmichael can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6232 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6232. Her e-mail address is carmichael@sptimes.com.

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