{"id":76286,"date":"2018-03-19T16:46:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T22:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/couple-injured-in-home-fire-on-south-side-of-cortez\/"},"modified":"2018-03-19T22:46:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T22:46:11","slug":"couple-injured-in-home-fire-on-south-side-of-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/couple-injured-in-home-fire-on-south-side-of-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple injured in home fire on south side of Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=27859ca6-4e80-4a09-83cb-f3e166c4b7a4&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"A fire reportedly caused by a dropped cigarette destroyed this home on South Broadway and sent an elderly couple to the hospital.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A fire reportedly caused by a dropped cigarette destroyed this home on South Broadway and sent an elderly couple to the hospital.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A fire at the Sikis Village Mobile Home Park on Saturday night destroyed a home and sent an elderly couple to the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>The fire broke out just before 10 p.m. at 321 S. Broadway, Unit 22, and was caused by a woman who dropped a cigarette onto an overstuffed recliner, which erupted in flames, said Shawn Bittle, assistant fire chief for the Cortez Fire Protection District.<\/p>\n<p>The smoker was using an oxygen tank, which likely fueled the fire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is an important reminder to never smoke in bed or around flammable furniture or material,\u201d Bittle said. \u201cSmoking near oxygen tanks is also a dangerous combination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The couple evacuated immediately and were quickly transported by ambulance to Southwest Memorial Hospital. Two pet dogs were lost.<\/p>\n<p>Nearby neighbors were evacuated as 16 firefighters from Cortez and Lewis-Arriola Fire Department battled the blaze for two hours. The Cortez Police Department also responded to the emergency.<\/p>\n<p>Fire was shooting out of the windows, and threatened nearby vehicles, but did not spread to other structures. Explosions could be heard inside the home during the fire.<\/p>\n<p>Bittle said distant access to a fire hydrant initially hampered firefighter suppression efforts. They relied on one from around the block and had to lay 800 feet of line to reach the fire.<\/p>\n<p>The couple\u2019s daughter, Tammy Lopez, said her mother was transported to a burn unit in Albuquerque. Her father was released from Southwest Memorial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey lost everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dropped cigarette, oxygen tank reported as cause<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,350,13,28,2049,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-76286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-fire","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-lewis","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76286"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=76286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}