On the morning of November 6, a house fire took a woman’s life, leaving her adult children without a home.
Jeffery Moore, his girlfriend, his sister Jessica Bergue, their mother and five dogs were living in the house at the time.
The siblings told us the day started out like normal as they woke up and headed to work.
Jessica Bergue says she got a call around 9:38 a.m. that her house was on fire and she needed to head home immediately.
Jeffery Moore explains how his morning went.
“I got up for work, my girlfriend works with me, so we both got up for work, and got ready and we’re going out the door and my mom was up and she was making tea and I went over and turned the burner down for the tea because she had it up a little high and I said don’t burn the house down," he said. "I don’t know if I said that. It was something along those lines, and then I left for work.”
Jessica got to her house at 10:11 a.m., she said when she pulled up to her house the front portion of it was on fire.
“I immediately was screaming 'my mom's in there! Get her out! My moms in there.'”
Jeffery showed up about 10 minutes later, while his family was screaming for their mother within the house.
“When I got here, I saw four Washoe County Sheriff’s standing out here in front of the car and two of them were facing the house and I could see there was smoke coming from the living room area that was the very front of the house,” he said.
He adds “I saw two other Washoe County Sheriff's and one of them was laughing and that really set me off to see how unprofessional they were acting. They were having a good ol’ time in front of a fire.”
Both siblings say they felt as though no one believed them when they said their mom was in the house fire.
Jessica goes on “So I ran into the burning building. I made it about halfway through the front door before they picked me up and threw me back and told me you can’t do that.”
Jeffery tells us “So I ran down the hill and screamed my mom was inside 'my mom's in there! My moms in there!' and all four of them turn around they saw me coming and they tried to stop me and I tried to go around them and they tased me. I got hit with the taser in the hand.”
Jessica adds “They then proceeded to put me in handcuffs and put me in the back of a cop car.”
After running towards the house Jeffery was tased four times to the ground, then put into a cop car as well.
During this time the police would not allow the siblings to speak to one another.
The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office didn’t respond to several requests to talk to us about what happened that day. But Chief Charles Moore from Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District did.
Chief Charles Moore told us “The scene was very chaotic, obviously. There’s people wanting to get into the house and find their loved one but we can’t let those people go in there. That’s certain death. We don’t even go in there with breathing apparatus and protective clothing.”
When the siblings were let go by officers, they stood by the residence for a couple hours before they were given information. At the time first responders did not have an answer as to what started the fire.
They still don’t.
Chief Moore says the fire was so damaging to the house they were not able to determine the cause after the investigation was conducted.
Chief Moore says “The house was absolutely unlivable after the operation was done.”
We did ask Chief Moore about the first responders' perspective of the fire and he told us when they got the call for this fire the firefighters were involved in a training exercise, which means they already had their protective clothing on and the engine was positioned, which saved them a little bit of time in terms of responding to this fire.
On arrival they had five firefighters on scene, the first on scene was a training captain. He reported that flames were blowing out of the door, windows and roof and 75% of the structure was fully engulfed in flames. Which means they cannot go into the house, and they had to suppress the fire from the outside before entering.
The Chief says “When you have fire blowing out windows and the roof there’s heavy heavy fire blowing out all places in the structure and it’s just not tenable for anybody to go in, let alone tenable for anybody inside unfortunately.”
He adds “It just simply was not safe, and the environment was not tenable for us to make an entry and try to find a victim.”
Chief Moore says when dealing with house fires they always assume someone is inside. Which is why he says they always aggressively fight the fire off.
He goes on “In this case this day was very very windy so if there was any kind of opening in this fire and once it did breach it’s getting all kinds of oxygen it needs to propagate quickly. This fire advanced very fast.”
Jessica Bergue told us what happened after the fire was put out “About another hour later they let us know, we did find your mom inside and then they bulldozed our house.”
Both siblings were confused as to why their house was bulldozed.
This is what Chief Moore told us “The house had so much damage to it. You’re not going to go back in there after the fire is put out. We had so much fall down and so much debris on the ground as a result of the fire the only way really to put that fire out is to get an excavator there and pick up the debris and set it aside and continue to wet that fire.”
He adds “45 years in the fire service and I’ve seen fires rekindle like that all the time and that’s just really what we have to do.”
In the aftermath of the fire, the Red Cross helped the siblings as they work to start over. For Jeffery, that means living in a shed right next to where his home once stood.
Jeffery says "It's home for right now it's all we got. We're sifting through the ashes and the rubble here and we're pulling things out like she found my wallet. You can see how dirty it is still.”
Jessica tells us "I just want everyone to know how beautiful my mom was. She was such a good person. She did not deserve to go out like this. She was the most caring person you could ever meet. She would give a stranger the shoes off of her feet if they were her only pair."
Chief Moore goes on to say "We want to express our deepest condolences to the family first and foremost, and it's sad when you die in the place where you think you're the safest and from a tragic like this and our heart goes out to the family."
The siblings need all the help they can get to start over. If you are interested in helping them, you can find their Go Fund Me by clicking the link here.
