[IRCA] Re: Fwd: Fw: Don Erickson Dies in Fire

["Bill Harms" <wharms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following is from the Press-Enterprise Tues. 3/1
 
 
Riverside man dies in fire

BLAZE: It was aided by stacks of magazines and newspapers in his home, an official 
says.

08:19 AM PST 
on Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Special to The Press-Enterprise

A Riverside man who was a self-described "pack rat" was killed Monday afternoon 
when a fire tore through the newspaper-and-magazine-stuffed rooms of his Essex 
Street house.

Neighbors identified the victim as Donald Erickson.

Firefighters said the blaze began somewhere in the back of the house, in the area 
where Erickson's body was discovered. The cause of the fire has not been 
determined.

Firefighters break the windows of a house on Essex Street in Riverside after a fire 
was reported by neighbors Monday.             
 

Riverside Fire Department Division Chief Tedd Laycock said the fire spread quickly, 
aided by ceiling-high stacks of newspapers, magazines and other items.

"For some reason, he had all the windows boarded up," Laycock said. Even when 
firefighters broke through the boards, they were still blocked by dense stacks of 
boxes and papers. Rows of file boxes labeled "Magazines" could be seen through 
the windows from the street.

Laycock said neighbors' calls to 911 came in at 12:52 p.m. Eight units responded. 
The fire was contained by 2 p.m., but brown smoke continued to pour out of the roof 
from a fire deep within the house.

Thelma Cryst, who lived across the street from Erickson for decades, said he was 
friendly but reclusive.

"He was a very quiet person. I didn't know him too well. We would chitchat, but it was 
never anything really personal," she said.

"He always helped out with anything I needed," Cryst said, explaining that at 
Christmastime he would help move her furniture to make way for her tree.

She said Erickson had a lot of medical problems. "I've been concerned about him a 
long time," Cryst said. "He hasn't been happy for, really, a long time," she said, 
walking out onto her driveway in socks and slippers. "When your lease is up, your 
lease is up."

"He called himself a pack rat," said Josie Herrera, who lived nearby. But neighbors 
said they had no idea of the extent of his condition until today.

"He was a nice guy," Herrera said, "but he was always locked in there. I got the 
impression that he didn't want nobody checking up on him."

Whenever neighbors went to check on him, she said, "He would say, 'I'm OK. I'm 
OK.' He didn't want nobody worrying about him."

By the time firefighters arrived, neighbors had already broken open a door and a 
window.

"We didn't know what to do," Herrera said. "We wanted to help. But there was so 
much smoke. We couldn't."

Cryst said Erickson had been teaching a computer class twice a week. She said he 
moved to the neighborhood in the 1970s.
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