ANAHEIM : Cigarette Blamed for Deadly Blaze

A 71-year-old man, who apparently fell asleep while smoking, died in a fire early Monday despite a neighbor’s frantic efforts to reach him.

Robert Yenser, who lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment on Pauline Street, appeared to have ignited the 3:20 a.m. blaze when he fell asleep in front of his television while smoking a cigarette, Anaheim fire investigator Don Pendleton said. The fire appeared to have originated in an upholstered chair, he said.

The blaze, which took firefighters five minutes to extinguish, was largely confined to Yenser’s living room, Pendleton said. No other apartments in the eight-unit complex suffered more than water damage.

Rosemarie Johnston, who lives in the apartment below Yenser’s, said she was asleep when she heard what she said sounded like an explosion.

“It was like a bomb,” she said. “My pictures fell off the wall.”

The sound was actually Yenser’s attempt to escape the burning living room by breaking his front windows, other neighbors said.

As Johnston ran outside, she saw that next-door neighbor Juan Carlos Campos, 26, had grabbed a garden hose and was trying to douse the flames that poured from the broken window.

It was then that Campos spotted Yenser, standing in the window, engulfed in flames.

“He (Campos) tore off the screen door,” said Campos’ wife, Maureen, “and kicked in the door, but it was too late.”

Yenser was lying unconscious on the floor, Maureen Campos said, adding that her husband was beaten back by the heat and smoke and was unable to reach Yenser.

Seconds later, firefighters arrived and extinguished the flames, estimated to have caused about $20,000 in damage, Pendleton said.