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04/20/93
Authorities say sect members are solely at fault for fatal fire
By George Kuempel and Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-The inferno that roared through the Branch Davidian compound Monday was the cruel, final act of cult leader David Koresh, federal authorities said.
Here and in Washington, top law enforcement officials insisted that the FBI's activities did not ignite the blaze. Instead, they said, it was Mr. Koresh's fulfillment of his prophecy that the 51-day standoff would end ruinously.
"I have absolutely no doubt at all that the cult members set it,' Attorney General Janet Reno said in Washington of the fire. She defended the FBI's efforts to end the siege peacefully by gassing people inside the compound.
"What we were told was that it could go on indefinitely, and we have to make the best judgment we can make as to what is in the interests . . . particularly of those children,' Ms. Reno said. "It was our earnest hope that we could try to negotiate without endangering human life to get those children out as soon as possible.'
FBI Agent Bob Ricks, one of the agency's commanders in Waco, said aerial surveillance and the accounts of FBI snipers on the ground made it clear that the fire was deliberately set by people who were in the compound.
"I can't tell you the shock and horror that all of us felt when we saw those flames,' Agent Ricks said. "It was, "Oh my God. They're killing themselves.' . . . We did not want this to occur.'
He said the blaze appeared to have been started in three spots. It spread through the compound-a collection of flimsy frame buildings -- almost instantaneously.
The first wisps of smoke were seen wafting from the windows about 12:10 p.m. At 12:18, a huge explosion sent an orange ball of flame shooting skyward. Two minutes later, the upper floor of the compound was engulfed in flames.
"He wanted to have as many people killed in that complex as possible,' Agent Ricks said.
Nine people were known to have survived the blaze. Mr. Koresh said previously that there were 95 people inside. Neither the cult leader nor any of the 17 young children believed to have been holed up with him were among the survivors, officials said.
"We can only assume that there was a massive loss of life,' Agent Ricks said. "It was truly an inferno of flames. Unfortunately, we have to assume that the children probably are also dead.'
Statements from survivors indicated that Mr. Koresh told them the children had been secured in a bunker. After the fire burned down to where agents could approach safely, firefighters doused the underground bunker with water, hoping to find living children. But authorities found only a few bodies-probably the bodies of those killed in the Feb. 28 raid, Agent Ricks said.
A list of the dead was not completed Monday. Agent Ricks said that effort was stalled by small explosions, possibly from caches of smoldering ammunition, that continued to pop inside the compound throughout the afternoon.
After nightfall Monday, the glaring spotlights that agents had previously trained on the compound were again flipped on, this time illuminating only the empty prairie.
Agent Ricks said one survivor told authorities that just before the flames erupted, someone inside the compound shouted: "The fire has been lit. The fire has been lit.' Another survivor "heard discussions of using lantern fuel' to accelerate the blaze's spread, the agent said.
He said that one FBI agent outside the buildings reported seeing a black-uniformed cult member wearing a gas mask and kneeling with his hands cupped. Flames then appeared to erupt from the cult member's hands, he said.
When the fire broke out, the FBI was trying to force the cult members into surrendering by flooding the compound with an irritant gas.
"We were hoping . . . that the women in the compound would grab those children and flee,' Agent Ricks said.
Shortly after 6 a.m., agents used armored vehicles to bash large holes in the compound's walls.
Agent Ricks said that the gas was "nonpyrotechnic' and that it was being delivered with a hose and compressed air, rather than in an explosive canister, to avoid the possibility of a fire.
"The gas had absolutely nothing to do with the fire that occurred at that compound,' he said.
The chemical agent in the gas is an irritant known as CS, named for its British inventors, B.B. Corson and R.W. Stoughton. It is delivered in fine crystals, resembling talcum powder or flour. Dissolved in liquid, it is used to make products such as Mace.
The chemical has a peppery odor and severely stings the skin, eyes, nose and throat.
By attacking the mucous membranes, CS can also cause a runny nose, cough, tightness in the chest and dizziness. Doses can incapacitate a person for five to 10 minutes.
Its chemical name is orthochlorobenzalmalononitrile.
The irritant was developed in 1928 and later adopted for use by the
U.S. Army. Police departments used it for riot control during the 1960s.
Agent Ricks defended the FBI's decision not to have firetrucks standing by when the bureau began its tear-gas assault on the sect members. The first firetrucks, from Waco and nearby Mart, arrived at the compound about a half hour after the first puffs of smoke were visible.
The FBI agent said gunshots early Monday morning from inside the compound -- 75 to 80 rounds-meant firefighters would have been endangered if they were in the area.
FBI agents were protected inside armored vehicles. But firetrucks "were not equipped to withstand the gunfire that was in that compound,' he said.
The makeshift nature of the compound-built over the years by cult members-may have hastened the fire's spread and exacerbated its killing power.
"We believe it is poorly constructed,' Agent Ricks said before the blaze. "If we wanted to knock the buildings down, we could probably do it in less than an hour.'
The flames did so, in much less time.
Staff writers Rachel Boehm, Jennifer Nagorka and Bruce Tomaso and
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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