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Apartment fire displaces LJ family
Published March 6, 2006
LAKE JACKSON — At least one Lake Jackson family spent Sunday morning staying with relatives after their apartment was destroyed by fire late Saturday night.
The cause of the fire that started at about 11 p.m. Saturday in Apartment 33 at the Casa del Lago complex in the 100 block of Oyster Creek Drive is under investigation, said Lake Jackson Fire Chief Mike Harper. The fire was contained to that first-floor apartment, but there was some smoke damage to the neighboring downstairs unit as well as the units above, said Lake Jackson Fire Marshal Randy Crim.
Brazoria and Clute fire departments were called to provide mutual aid and the fire was contained within an hour, Harper said. One lady living next to apartment 33 was treated for smoke inhalation on-scene by Lake Jackson EMS, but there were no other injuries, Harper said.
Signs of the fire could be seen on the building’s exterior, with blackened siding streaming up from the downstairs window of the burned unit. The plastic blinds in the window of the apartment immediately above had melted from the heat of the blaze.
Gilbert Ligues, 26, who lives in the apartment with his wife, Elizabeth, and 18-month-old daughter, Emelie, said the family wasn’t home when the fire started.
“We were at my mother-in-law’s and we came back and saw the living room was on fire,” Ligues said. “We don’t leave nothing on so I don’t see what could have started the fire.”
Ligues, who said he has lived in apartment 33 for a year and a half and at Casa del Lago for three years, didn’t know in the early morning hours Sunday how much — if any — of the family’s belongings could be salvaged.
Standing in black shorts and a tank top in the chilly air late Saturday, Robert Valentine said he suspected something was wrong when he arrived home shortly before residents were alerted to the fire.
“I knew I smelled something,” said Valentine, 31, who shares Apartment 36 with his girlfriend and father. “My girl told me, ‘No, it’s just cigarettes downstairs,’ cause everyone smokes outside. So I went to bed and the next thing I hear, ‘Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Get out!’”
Valentine, who has lived in the apartment for three and a half years, said firefighters had soaked the floors of his apartment and the neighboring upstairs unit to keep the fire from spreading.
He was unaware of any other damage his apartment might have suffered from the fire. Casa del Lago manager Maria Ana Marin said a new apartment would be ready this morning for the Ligues family. She could not confirm if other families were displaced by the fire.
The fire was the third at a Brazosport apartment complex this year.
Eight families were displaced by a fire Jan. 8 at the Olde Oaks Apartments in Clute, and four units were damaged by a fire at the Fisherman’s Wharf apartments in Clute on Feb. 1. No one was hurt in either fire.
The 84-unit Casa del Lago complex was built in 1972, according to apartmentcities.com.
Reporter Chris Robinson contributed to this report.
Michael Morris is assistant managing editor of The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0145.
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