Moments before Denver Fire Lt. Richard Montoya was critically injured in a burning home Sunday, he was evacuating his crew out of a pitch-black bedroom where the temperature reached 1,000 degrees.
A 16-year-old girl also was seriously hurt, suffering first- and second- degree burns in the 4:30 a.m. fire at her grandmother’s home in north Denver. She was pulled out by firefighters.
Many firefighters, some in tears, gathered at Denver Health Medical Center on Sunday afternoon to keep vigil for Montoya, a 30-year veteran of the department just two months away from retirement.
As the heat intensified in a second-floor bedroom of the home, Montoya told his crew, most of them crawling through the dark on their bellies, to evacuate. Montoya, holding the water nozzle, was in the lead and closest to the flames.
“Let’s back out,” Montoya said in his last communication over the radio.
As the firefighters got up and headed down the staircase from the second floor, they heard a horrific sound. It was Montoya’s safety alarm squealing out, indicating he was down for at least 30 seconds and not moving.
Four firefighters rushed toward the sound and found Montoya pinned under a mattress. The 61-year-old lieutenant was in a second-floor room adjacent to the staircase. He was not breathing.
When he was found, Montoya’s air mask was askew, which may have caused his injuries, Denver Fire Lt. Phil Champagne said.
“Had (the mask) been in place, those injuries wouldn’t have happened,” Champagne said. “He did have building components on him. If you get trapped, it doesn’t take much to be overcome.”
Firefighters Mike Gonzales, Chris MacDonald, John Larson and Lt. Eric Jean found Montoya and pulled him out, Fire Department Division Chief Nick Nuanes said.
If Montoya had moved another 4 inches, he would have made it safely down the staircase instead of backing into the room where he was hurt, Denver Fire Chief Larry Trujillo said.
The fire started at the home of Susan Gutierrez, in the 4300 block of Thompson Court. She lives there with her daughter, Cindy Maestas, 36, and two granddaughters, Raquel, 16, and Shantell, 14.
Gutierrez said it was Shan tell who alerted the family that the house was burning.
“She said, ‘Nana. Come on! Let’s go! The house is on fire,”‘ Gutierrez said.
Raquel was critically burned in the fire. She was sleeping in a back bedroom on the second floor when the fire broke out and didn’t run out with everyone else, her grandmother said.
Firefighters Paul Graham and Jordan Schoolmeester pulled the girl out, Nuanes said.
Raquel was taken to University Hospital for treatment of first- and second-degree burns.
A cotton ball with some type of ointment on it might have ignited next to a burning candle, Gutierrez said.
Maestas told 9News the fire started from a burning candle in her bedroom.
“I threw the water, and it didn’t help,” Maestas said. “It just kept going and going, so I had to get out of there. … I couldn’t take any more.”
Late Sunday, Denver fire investigators had not confirmed the cause of the blaze, which took 30 firefighters to control.
“God bless him (Montoya), and I need to go see him,” a shaken Maestas said. “I hope he (Montoya) recovers. He saves lives every day. If this is my fault … this is something I’ll never get over.”
Gutierrez stood in a daze outside the shell of her home Sunday while waiting for a relative to take her to see Raquel in the hospital. She held on to the only possessions she had left: a bag of medication, a burned Bible that a firefighter saved for her and a backpack.
Montoya was the fourth Denver fireman injured on the job in a week.
A firefighter who helped pull Montoya out of the house severely injured his back. On Friday, a firefighter’s neck and ears were burned during a house fire in the 10700 block of East Dartmouth. Both men were treated at hospitals and recovered.
On Tuesday, 35-year-old firefighter Billy Green was critically injured while working on a fire in the 500 block of South High Street. The apparatus that regulates airflow into his mask was not attached correctly when he passed out. Green recovered after several days in the hospital.
“We were encouraged after Billy recovered so quickly,” Denver Manager of Safety Al LaCabe said. “It’s so devastating that it happened again.”
Trujillo said the department will review dispatch tapes recorded during the fire but insisted that his firefighters followed their training.
“These are the best-trained firefighters,” Trujillo said. “We fight fires like this every day in Denver. Of course, we will test the equipment, but they did what they were trained to do – they found him and brought him out.”
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-820-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
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