Foster City Fire Department Chief Michael Keefe, left, and Foster City Fire Investigator John Mapes listen to speakers at a news conference at the California Highway Patrol headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., Monday, May 6, 2013. Investigators are trying to determine why the back of a stretch limousine burst into flames on a San Francisco Bay bridge, trapping and killing five of the nine women inside on a girls' night out, including a newlywed bride from the Philippines. It happened late Saturday night as the Lincoln Town Car crossed the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge on the south end of the bay. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — First came the tapping. Over the blasting music, limo driver Orville Brown heard someone in the backseat knock on the partition behind him, saying something about smoke. No smoking allowed, he told the crowd of partying women.
Then the taps turned to urgent knocks, and someone screamed “Smoke, smoke” and “Pull over!”
In just a few fleeting moments, five of the women celebrating a girls’ night out were killed by flames that overtook the luxury car with terrifying speed.
As smoke thickened in the passenger compartment, Brown pulled the white stretch limo to a stop on a bridge over San Francisco Bay and started pulling women out through the partition that separated him from his passengers.
Three good Samaritans, including a firefighter, stopped to help. The first woman who got out ran to the back and yanked open a door, but Brown said it was already too late.
“I knew it wasn’t a good scene. I figured with all that fire that they were gone, man,” Brown said. “There were just so many flames. Within maybe 90 seconds, the car was fully engulfed.”
From the first tap on the window until the rear of car became an inferno couldn’t have taken more than three minutes, Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Authorities searched for answers Monday, hoping to learn what sparked the blaze and why five of the victims could not escape the fast-spreading flames.
The women who were killed in the Saturday night blaze were found pressed up against the 3-foot by 1½-foot partition, apparently because smoke and fire kept them from the rear exits of the extended passenger compartment.
The position of the bodies suggested they were trying to get away from the fire, said San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault.
The women were celebrating the wedding of a newlywed friend, Neriza Fojas, who was among the dead.
Fojas and another of the fatalities, Michelle Estrera, were nurses at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. The remaining three victims have not been identified.
The medical center’s CEO, Jack Chubb, said in a statement Monday that Fojas and Estrera were outstanding nurses, loved by their patients, colleagues and staff.
“Both were good friends, stellar nurses and excellent mentors who served as preceptors to new nurses,” he said.
