By Ken Berry

Sometimes the story finds the reporter. I was on my way to the office one afternoon when I saw
a column of smoke rising not far from my house. The story I found barely registered a mention
in the newspaper, but it stuck with me for a lifetime.

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 smoke
rising a couple of blocks away in San Francisco’s Excelsior District. 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 5-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.

The coverage of the fire won several awards for best live news coverage and “Best Use of
Sound.” Listen to it here:

Ken Berry covered news in the San Francisco Bay Area for KGO Radio for more than 25 years.
This excerpt is from his website, Covering the City, which contains his recollections of
the stories he covered as well as extensive audio and video archives.