I got a call at home as I was getting ready for work. A woman had been murdered in my neighborhood and the assignment desk wanted me to swing by the scene on my way in. I grabbed my equipment bag, which was always packed with a hand-held cassette recorder, a stick mike with the station’s logo, a notebook, extra batteries and various cords and tools, and jumped in my car and headed to the scene.

I interviewed a couple of witnesses and I was waiting for an official statement from the ranking police officer on scene, when I heard a commotion behind me. I turned and saw black smoking rising a couple of blocks away. I excused myself and took off running, my tape recorder still on.

I was on scene in a minute, before the police and fire departments arrived. Smoke was pouring out of the upstairs windows. A small crowd gathered in the front of the house. A woman was yelling in anguish, “she’s three-years-old… three-years-old.”

A neighbor — Robert Cadillo — went inside the front door. I followed him. The main floor was clear and intact, but black choking smoke poured down the stairwell preventing us from getting upstairs and forcing us back outside.

Cadillo wouldn’t give up. He grabbed an extension ladder and  climbed up to the second floor. He broke out the window and squeezed his way inside. I held the ladder, passed him a garden hose a neighbor had rustled up, and looked on helplessly.

He fought the flames with water from the hose; kicked out the back windows to dissipate the smoke; turned over furniture; looked in closets and under the bed for the child before heat and smoke forced him to retreat.

“There was a lot of heavy smoke… a lot of heat against the doors,” he told me. “I didn’t find any kid in there.”

The firefighters found the body later that afternoon.

The tragedy was compounded by the likelihood the victim’s five-year-old brother started the fire. I interviewed a family friend, Mary Gonzales, as she held hands with the boy.

“I asked him in Spanish if he was playing with matches because his eyelashes were burned. He don’t want to speak with me. He don’t want to say nothing, so I think he did do something.”

Our next newscast wasn’t for another hour, giving me time to drive back to the station. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I let the audio tell the story. The frantic cries for help, the choking from the smoke, clanging ladders, breaking glass and wails of sorrow picked up by the microphone said more than I ever could.

My coverage of the fire won several awards for “Best Use of Sound” and live coverage.