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Blaze Kept Rescuers At Bay

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By VALERIE KALFRIN and CHIP OSOWSKI, The Tampa Tribune News Channel 8

Published: February 7, 2008

TAMPA - Alonzo Browne touched the boot of a screaming man inside a burning auto business early Wednesday, but the heat and flames kept him from doing any more.

Browne, his boss and several police officers watched in horror as a mechanic inside Jacob's Lube apparently burned to death shortly after midnight Tuesday after a series of explosions inside the business at 901 W. Busch Blvd.

"He was screaming at the top of his lungs," said Browne, 37. "I will never forget that. I can still hear him screaming."

The mechanic, Farid I.A. Karakra, 22, lived in an apartment on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, police said.

Friend Alex Suleiman, watching investigators walk through the burnt shell of the business on Wednesday, said Karakra was from Jerusalem and his parents live abroad. Those closest to him knew him as Farid Yusif, a name he assumed in homage to other family members in his clan, Suleiman said.

Karakra had lived in Tampa about four years and worked at the garage about six months, Suleiman said. He was engaged to the sister of the business's owner, Yazid Yousef, Suleiman said.

"He always had a smile on his face," Suleiman said. "He was looking forward to getting married in May."

Suleiman didn't know what his friend was doing at the garage at midnight but thought he might have been working late.

"He'd come in early. They open at 8, and there were times he would come in at 5 to get cars going, or he'd stay late," he said.

The cause of the explosions is under investigation by Tampa Fire Rescue, Tampa police, the state fire marshal and the Tampa office of the FBI.

Federal bomb technicians responded to the blaze upon hearing reports of multiple explosions, said Dave Couvertier, a spokesman for the FBI's Tampa office. As of Wednesday afternoon, they had found nothing unusual in the debris, he said.

"It continues to look like what it was, a fire," Couvertier said.

Tampa Fire Rescue Capt. Bill Wade said officials might not determine a cause for days, given the complexity of the damage. Workers removed an unstable wall and propped up a roof inside the business to allow investigators a better view, he said.

The auto repair business is at the west end of a building at a Citgo station across the street from Chamberlain High School. The building also contains a convenience store and deli, which Wade said sustained smoke damage.

Two cars burned at the auto shop, but the gas station's pumps appear unharmed, Wade said.

Browne arrived at work at Nicola's Donuts on Busch Boulevard about midnight. Two minutes after midnight, he and owner Eric Frantz heard an explosion.

"The roof blew off the place," Frantz recalled. "You could feel it."

"It was like a cannon going off. Boom," Browne said.

Within seconds, they heard another noise: screaming. They dashed across the street to find the wounded man.

"I could tap his boot, but I couldn't grab it," Browne said. "I kept trying to get as close as I could to him, but it was just so hot and so intense. ... It was horrible."

Behind the Citgo station, resident Joni Mead, 77, said she also was startled by the explosions.

"I was lying in bed watching the election, and I felt the house shake," she said Wednesday. "I thought, 'What in the world is that?'"

Mead said she saw nothing when she looked out her front window, then heard three more explosions. She looked out her back porch. "I saw the flames shooting through the trees."

Police asked her and other neighbors to leave the area, in case the fire spread. "It sure was scary. I was just shaking all over," she said.

Meanwhile, at the gas station, Browne said he held out a long piece of metal for the man to grab, with no success. "I kept calling to him," he said. "I said, 'Hold on, hold on, the paramedics are coming. Just hold on.'"

Tampa police Officer Ed Croissant and Cpl. Jim Thompson arrived moments before the fire crews, but the heat also kept them at bay.

Browne said the officers used small fire extinguishers to spray the blaze, but that seemed to make the flames worse.

Firefighters in standard bunker gear pulled the wounded man from the building, but it was too late, Wade said.

Browne said he felt frustrated over not being able to do more.

"To be there, helpless. ..." he said. "I had to do something. I couldn't just stand there. ... Even if I could just talk to him until he left this Earth, I had to do something."

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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