November 28, 2006
By John Hacker and Ralph Blumenthal
The New York Times

ANDERSON, Mo. � A fire raced through a group home for the mentally ill and disabled here early Monday, killing nine residents and one staff member in a blaze that Gov. Matt Blunt called suspicious.

Eighteen other people were hospitalized, some in critical condition. Six of the 34 people inside the building, ranging in age from their early 20s to the elderly, escaped with minor injuries. Officials would not immediately identify the victims, and local hospitals would not allow patients who survived the fire to be interviewed.

The fire destroyed the one-story home, the Anderson Guest House, a converted grocery operated by the Joplin River of Life Ministries Inc. The group declined to comment, but the owner of the home, Robert Dupont, later released a statement calling the fire and the loss of life "a very tragic situation," The Associated Press reported.

State officials said the building, on the main highway through this town of 1,900 in McDonald County, in the Ozarks, had been cited for minor violations but passed state inspection as recently as March.

The state fire marshal, Randy L. Cole, said there was no sprinkler system.

"There was a fire alarm system that was contained in the building," Mr. Cole said, "but we haven't been able to determine whether or not it worked."

Survivors who spoke to grief counselors from the Ozark Center of Joplin said they had heard a loud bang or an explosion that filled corridors with smoke and sent residents jumping out their windows to escape. Some said the staff member who died had been trying to help the injured out of the building. Four bodies were recovered from the ruins; the six other people died later.

Governor Blunt, who rushed to the scene and was briefed by investigators, said: "We're certainly not ruling out the fact that this might have been started by someone. It's important that we explore this, and we're not ruling out a criminal investigation. Indeed, we are treating this as if it was a crime scene." The fire "is being treated as suspicious," he added.

Mr. Cole, the fire marshal, said that a fire had broken out in a resident's room of the group home on Saturday but that investigators did not yet know whether it was related to the deadly blaze.

Witnesses and officials said that the fire had broken out at the north end of the building near a gazebo and that five neighbors had made almost simultaneous emergency calls to the fire department at 1:05 a.m. Mike Bickford, an Anderson police officer who was one of the first on the scene, said he arrived within five minutes to see the north end of the building engulfed in flames.

"We entered at the kitchen area," Officer Bickford said. "I went in as far as I could go. It was filled with smoke and very hot. Me and six other guys were pulling people out as quickly as we could. When I went in it was like going into a furnace. I was walking under flames, but the roof had not collapsed yet." Lawrence Henson, of nearby Pineville, Mo., said his 55-year-old sister, Patricia Henson, a resident at the home, died of smoke inhalation. Mr. Henson said she had been in the home because pneumonia and scarlet fever she had had as a child had caused brain damage.

"Things were not as good as they could have been in this facility, I can say that," Mr. Henson said in a telephone interview. "I think they were understaffed at times, but she was happy there." He added, "It always bugged me that the windows were so small; if you had a fire and the windows were the only way out, most of them could not have gotten out that way."

He said that he had never seen or heard of anyone being physically restrained but that he could not imagine that the mentally ill residents were capable of getting out on their own.

Steven Spears, who lives next door and whose parents built the grocery in the 1950s that became the group home in the 1970s, said he had seen the fire on one of his house security cameras.

"I like to keep watch to see if anything's going on at the guest house," Mr. Spears said. "I was watching TV when I noticed on the monitor flames bursting out of the front door. I was one of the first three people on the scene."

He said he had seen about a dozen residents escape barefoot in bathrobes and nightclothes while he was helping to push away a small white car that had started to catch fire. "One resident kicked in the kitchen door, and we both had intentions of going in until I saw him back off," Mr. Spears said. "There was just too much smoke, and it was too hot."

Another neighbor, Betty Wood, said her teenage daughter had seen the fire and called 911, handing the phone to her mother. "My daughter yelled at me and said she could hear a woman screaming," Ms. Wood said. "I had heard it, but I thought it was on television."

She said she had told the emergency dispatcher, "We need everything you got over here." She said she had seen flames as high as 30 feet and had rushed out with blankets for those who had escaped.

The home is under the supervision of the Missouri Department of Mental Health, which licenses the care program, and the Department of Health and Senior Services, which monitors the building and its conditions. Inspection records posted online described repair deficiencies and other violations but "none related to fire safety," said Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for health and senior services.

John Hacker reported from Anderson, Mo., and Ralph Blumenthal from Houston. Cheryl Camp contributed reporting from Joplin, Mo.