Victim’s family, neighbor talk of deadly mobile home fire

Neighbor says woman made it out alive, but went back to save her dog

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The family and neighbors of a 60-year-old Redmond woman who was killed with her dog in a weekend mobile home fire say they were sadly not surprised to learn her smoking sparked the blaze -- or that she'd gone back in to try to save her beloved dog.

Sheryl Ann Linker-Ortiz, 60, had been smoking in her home Sunday morning when the fire happened, officials said.

From next-door neighbor Sharon Cummings’ home, you can still see where the flames melted the plastic fencing and the right side of her van. 

“If the first responders had not gotten here when he did, there would have been two homes lost,” Cummings said Monday. “That’s what he told me.”

She said Linker-Ortiz’s home was one of the oldest in the Mountain View Mobile Home Park.

Cummings just happened to be awake around 6 a.m. Sunday. Fifteen minutes after she finished boiling water, she said, her roommate yelled that the mobile home next door was on fire.

Redmond Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Jeff Puller told NewsChannel 21 the last fatal structure fire in Redmond happened on Oct. 10 at a southeast Redmond duplex -- and that, too, apparently was caused by the improper use of smoking materials.

Puller said Linker-Ortiz made the initial 911 call about the fire and said she was going to leave the home to go to a neighbor's, but didn't make it.

He said the smoke detectors in her home were working. Fire crews found oxygen tanks inside the home, which had caused a few explosions.

 Cummings said she saw Linker-Ortiz make it out to the front porch.

“I guess she realized her dog wasn’t behind her, so she turned around and went back into the house to get the dog from under the bed,” Cummings said. “They never made it back out.”

NewsChannel 21 visited Linker-Ortiz’s brother-in-law and her mother, who lives in the same mobile home park. They declined to be on camera, but they shared that Linker-Ortiz worked in real estate and had a son in the Navy. 

Family members said she had been battling various health issues and confirmed she had been on oxygen.

Cummings said that when she and neighbors met with Linker-Ortiz’s mother as her daughter’s home was on fire, her mother said she "always knew this was the way she was going to go.”

“But I know if it had been my daughter, it would have just devastated me totally,” Cummings said. “She loved that dog," named Bandit. "That dog was her world.”

To read the previous related story, visit https://ktvz.com/news/redmond/2020/01/19/person-killed-in-redmond-mobile-home-fire/.