Fort Collins – A single mother and her baby died early Sunday morning in a three-alarm fire at a low-income apartment complex.
Kris Kuneman and daughter Lily died when their apartment complex at 1303 W. Swallow Road caught fire.
The causes of the fire and the two deaths are still under investigation, according Jason Mantas a spokesman for the Poudre Fire Authority.
The fire department responded to 911 calls at CARE Housing Inc.’s Swallow housing complex – a series of two-story apartment buildings – at about 4:50 a.m., Mantas said.
Heavy smoke and fire kept firefighters from getting into the burning building.
The fire hurled pieces wood and metal into neighboring buildings and melted the bumpers of nearby cars.
“I looked out the front door, and the ceiling burst into flames and collapsed,” said Drew Watson, who lived in an apartment below Kuneman.
Watson and Autumn Rusch took their 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter and escaped through a back window.
Kuneman made one of the 911 calls and was on the line with operators until the call was disconnected, Mantas said. The tapes are part of the investigation and have not been released, he said.
Shelley Bates, 22, who lived in a nearby building, said she was awake when the fire started and saw Kuneman trying to escape.
“She was screaming, holding her baby,” Bates said. She said Kuneman tried to leave from her front door but was kept back by flames.
Neighbors reported hearing a loud boom and waking up to car alarms. “The fire was so bright it looked like the sun was up,” said Shaun Maisey, another resident of the complex.
After failing to get to the second-floor apartment from the front of the building, firefighters reached the apartment through a back window. Both Kuneman and her daughter were dead.
Kuneman had been a student at Fort Collins High School and worked at a Subway sandwich shop in Foothills Mall, according to Chris Frikken, a high- school friend.
“She was a good person, lived life day by day,” Frikken said Sunday morning in front of the fire. “She worked and took care of her kid. I’m still numb about it.”
Frikken said Kuneman was 23 and that Lily was 9 months old.
Five people were taken to Poudre Valley Hospital. One was admitted, and four were treated and released.
It took about an hour for 10 fire companies, with about 32 firefighters, to bring the fire under control, Mantas said.
Firefighters, however, continued dealing with hot spots, and parts of the complex were still smoldering Sunday evening.
The fire caused minor heat damage to two other buildings and damaged about 10 cars, fire officials said.
About 16 families in neighboring complexes were evacuated but were allowed back Sunday afternoon.
CARE Housing Inc. operates five housing complexes, with 202 units, for low-income families and single parents in Fort Collins.
Chadrick Martinez, CARE’s executive director, said the houses were up to code when they were built in 1996. He called the fire “a tragedy.”
CARE is working to place 11 people who lost their homes in the fire in other CARE complexes, Martinez said.
Staff writer Christopher Ortiz can be reached at 303-820-1201 or cortiz@denverpost.com.
