Thomas Donald Kane

October 3, 1951 - May 28, 1994   (42)

Tom Kane died of burns suffered while he tried to put out a fire in the North Magnolia  Avenue home of his parents, Patrick and Robinette Kane.   He suffered burns over 70 percent of his body in the May 22 fire and died at the Maricopa County Medical Center’s burn unit in Phoenix.  

His parents, who were home at the time, and a woman who was visiting Tom when the fire started, all escaped injury, said Tucson fire inspector Randy Ogden.  The fire started in the home’s kitchen.  Police said last month that a trail of flammable liquid was found leading from the home’s porch to the kitchen.  “The family is so devastated, they don’t have anything,” said family friend Diane Reed.  Reed said she has known the family since she was in the same class as Thomas at St Cyril’s Elementary School.  “We did everything together,” she said.  “Tom was just such a nice person.  In my eyes, he died a hero,” she added.  Reed said Thomas alerted his father to the fire.  After telling his father to get his mother out of the house, Kane rushed back into the kitchen to try to douse the flames.  Instead he caught fire and stumbled out of the house into the yard where his father doused him with water from a garden hose, authorities said.  Family lawyer Dan Gloria said Kane’s parents and two sisters still were too distraught over the death to talk about the fire.  “The father has just lost his whole will, his spirit, said Reed.

Gloria said the fire gutted the Kanes’ house, causing extensive damage.  No estimate has been made yet on loss to the home’s contents.  The Kanes lost much of their furniture in the fire.  Diane Reed has helped set up a fund at the Arizona Bank to help the Kanes.  Jean Miller, an assistant vice president at one of the bank’s East Side branches said the fund was set up under the title of “Donation account for the family of Tom Kane.”  Miller said anyone wishing to donate money through the account may do so at any Arizona Bank branch.

-from an article in the Tucson Daily Citizen, June 18, 1994