Smoking a possible cause

DEADLY BEACH HOUSE FIRE

By CLIF LeBLANC and JEFF WILKINSON - cleblanc@thestate.com jwilkinson@thesate.com

OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. — The blaze that consumed the lives of seven college students could have been caused by careless smoking, state and federal investigators said Friday.

About half of the 13 college students visiting 1 Scotland St., which burned Sunday, are smokers, a local prosecutor said.

But students from neighboring houses also visited during the beach weekend.

“Due to the extensive damage ... agents could not rule out improperly discarded smoking materials as a possible cause,” states a preliminary report by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Investigators could not pinpoint the point of origin except the fire started on a back deck. But they specifically ruled out a grill and an outdoor fireplace, known as a chimenea, town Mayor Debbie Smith said.

Rex Gore, the district attorney for a three-county area that includes Brunswick, said Friday authorities had informed him that six of the 13 who stayed in the house smoked.

Gore said he was not provided names.

Greenville’s Tripp Wylie, one of the survivors, said earlier this week, “Nobody smoked inside. I know that for a fact.

“The thing about it is these were responsible kids,” said Wylie, a 20-year-old USC sophomore.

Smoking caused 2 percent of the nation’s 412,500 residential fires in 2006, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, a federal agency.

Efforts Friday to reach families of those who died and the survivors were unsuccessful.

Chip Auman, a Hartsville lawyer who owns the beach house, also could not be reached.

The report confirms earlier accounts that the students died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Local officials held a news conference to issue the report, but said little beyond what it states.

“This will give people who have been discussing these issues a better understanding of what happened that morning and narrows down the possibilities,” said Randy Thompson, Brunswick County’s emergency management director.

Linda Skiba, a clerk at Sheffield’s Market a few blocks from the shell that once was the three-story house, said she was surprised by the report.

“So, it could have been prevented?” Skiba said. “That’s a shame. No matter how it happened, it’s just been terrible.”

The probe remains open as state and federal agents await results of toxicology tests.

They also continue to examine the speed with which the fire consumed the 2,526-square-foot house and other “contributing factors,” the report states. Officials would not elaborate.

A final investigative report is several weeks away, Thompson said.

Smith said she called all of the victims’ families she could reach before disclosing the report. Some were burying their children Friday.

Funerals for three of the seven were held Thursday and Friday. Three more students are to be interred today. The final victim is to be laid to rest Monday.

Tom Anderson, father of Justin Anderson, who was killed, said Thursday he holds no malice toward homeowner Auman.

“I talked to that gentleman. He’s in deep sorrow over this,” Anderson said. “He took his family to this house. I’m sure that house was as safe as any house could be.”

The home did not have sprinklers, which are not required by building codes.

Brunswick County Fire Marshal Scott Garner said Friday the deaths will cause national building code authorities to reconsider a decision made last spring.

A motion to require residential fire sprinklers received a majority — 56 percent — but fell short of a required two-thirds vote at a May meeting of the International Code Council, according to a report from Contractor magazine.

“This fire will put it back on the front burner,” Garner said.

Throughout the week here, streams of cars cruised by the house. People got out to take photographs, contemplate, pray and look at mementos left near a chain-link fence that now surrounds the structure.

Seven small white wooden crosses erected there are adorned with flowers and stuffed animals.

Someone placed a bow of garnet, black and orange — USC and Clemson colors — on the fence. Below, a poem, taken in part from a hymn popularized after 9/11, reads:

“So brief the joy since each was born

So long the years in which to mourn.”

Staff writers Jim Hammond and Adam Beam contributed. Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664. Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495.