Complacency among firefighters led to the Pasadena Fire Department’s failure to find a woman’s body in a torched laundry room in July. At a meeting of the Pasadena (Calif) City Council’s Public Safety Committee, Fire Chief Calvin Wells provided more details about the July 31 fire.
Firefighters were called to a home on South San Marino Avenue twice on July 31, he said. The first call was in response to the initial blaze, and the second was to douse a rekindled fire at the detached garage. It wasn’t until Aug. 2 that an insurance investigator discovered the remains of Yolanda Marie Sapetto, a transient.
Wells, who became head of the department months after the blaze, blamed “complacency on the part of responders” for the failure to spot Sapetto’s body. “However, we are assured that what happened on July 31 is not the norm,” he said. Wells also said he believed the woman died before the fire started in the early morning hours.
Sapetto had a history of breaking into people’s homes and turning on the gas, Wells said. About 30 days before the fire, she broke into a different Pasadena home, turned on the gas from the stove and laid down on a bed.
Two outdoor grill gas tanks, with the valves open, were found at the San Marino Avenue fire site. Wells said an autopsy revealed it was likely the woman died from carbon monoxide poisoning before the fire broke out.
“The victim was most probably deceased prior to the fire,” Wells said. “But as part of our life-saving priorities, we want to find and remove any body in the event it might be in a condition we can save.”
The same four-person crew conducted both searches of the fire site but didn’t search the small laundry room beyond “eyeballing” it, Wells said. He said the lapse is contrary to the department’s procedures. “If you had followed [procedures], do you think the body would’ve been found initially?” asked City Councilwoman Margaret McAustin.
“I believe there was a high probability the body would’ve been found if standard operating procedures had been followed,” Wells said. “Very disappointing. Not your finest hour,” McAustin said later.
The firefighters involved were reprimanded, Wells said. Saying it is a personnel matter, he declined to elaborate, other than to say the firefighters have received additional training.
Over the years, firefighters have taken shortcuts on what he called “bread-and-butter calls” due to years of experience, Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Costa told the committee. But it becomes a problem when younger firefighters take those shortcuts, he said. The Pasadena Fire Department recently has seen several retirements and the average age and years of experience of firefighters has fallen.
The fire department is reviewing and conducting field exercises for rescue and extraction operations, as well as protecting fire-scene evidence.
Since the July 2011 fire, there have been 55 structure fires in Pasadena. Each one has been reviewed to make sure the department is complying with its standards, Wells said.
By Adolfo Flores, LATimes
