Residents smelled gas before fire
30 stay in shelter after blaze destroys, damages SE Albuquerque apartments
Residents say a fire that destroyed or damaged a number of units at a Southeast Heights apartment complex Sunday was caused by the same leaky gas meter that they claim to have repeatedly reported to the apartment manager for more than a year.
The property manager Tuesday denied receiving the reports.
About 30 people who lived in the apartment building in the 400 block of Georgia SE were temporarily relocated to the Manzano Mesa Multigenerational Center, where they were housed overnight, and given provisions by the city of Albuquerque and the Red Cross, said Anna Sanchez, director of the city’s Office of Senior Affairs.
The center was closed to the public Monday. Sanchez thanked the public for being understanding, and said the building would be open for normal activities and services today.
St. Martin’s HopeWorks has since provided vouchers so the displaced families, which include 15 people under age 18, could stay at a local motel, Sanchez said.
The apartment most heavily damaged was occupied by Jaqueline Arellano, her fiancé, Daniel Crespin, and their four children.
“We’ve been smelling gas for over a year, since we lived there,” Crespin said. “I complained to the management at least twice. The manager told me she called the gas company. If she had, I believe they would have gone out, because that’s a serious matter and the gas company doesn’t mess around.”
Arellano said she also reported the gas smell multiple times to the property manager.
“She said the maintenance guy would look at it, but I know he never came because I’m a stay-at-home mom and there is no way to get into my backyard without going through the house to the back door,” she said.
The gas meter, she said, was just outside the back door.
The apartment manager, Destiny Garcia of Turnaround Properties, said she was not aware of a gas problem before the Sunday fire.
“Nobody told me anything about a gas leak until last night,” she said. “If they would have, I would have done a work order and contacted the New Mexico Gas Co. to take a look at it.”
Arellano was the first one to smell smoke, but Crespin was the first to see flames upon opening the back door.
Flames had engulfed the gas meter, which he said looked like it had partly melted, and the blaze had spread to the roof.
“I took a fire extinguisher from inside and tried to put the fire out while yelling to the family to get out,” he said.
They did and subsequently notified others in the apartment building to get out.
They were all standing in the parking lot when “we heard a loud ‘boom!’ And then black smoke started coming out everywhere,” Arellano said.
She and Crespin said the apartment’s smoke alarms never sounded, something that other residents also said of the smoke alarms in their apartments.
“We went back later that night and saw that everything was gone — destroyed,” she said. “My babies’ pictures were on the floor all wet. In my kids’ room, the whole roof was gone.”
Tenant Vera Sanchez said she called the gas company last fall because she smelled gas leaking from the meter behind her apartment.
“They came out within the hour and said I did have a gas leak, but because the meter was fairly new, they were able to fix it. But after that, I continued to smell gas, but not from my meter. I was thinking it might have been coming from the apartment next to me,” the same meter that may have caused the Sunday fire.
New Mexico Gas Co. spokesman Tim Korte confirmed that a crew had been dispatched to fix a leaking meter at the address on Georgia last September, but it was a different apartment unit. There was no record of anyone reporting a gas smell at the unit involved in the fire, he said.
“The New Mexico Gas Co. is responsible for leaking meters, and when we get this kind of call, we respond to it immediately,” Korte said. “It is an emergency call, and we respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Mayor Tim Keller and representatives of the Albuquerque Fire Department will provide additional details about the fire at a news conference today outside the apartment building on Georgia near Zuni SE.