Victims of fire remembered as fun-loving, good-hearted

As fire investigators yesterday continued to search for the cause of Tuesday's fatal apartment fire in Edmonds, one of the victims was remembered as a fun-loving woman who possessed a big heart. The other as a good-hearted young man.

Jessica Hanks, 20, was one of two people who died in the fire at the Firdale Village Apartments in the 9300 block of 244th Street Southwest.

The other victim was Joe Clenney, 21, a student at Shoreline Community College.

The fire also displaced more than 50 residents and destroyed or damaged 32 units.

Hanks lived at home with her mother, Gail, in Shoreline and was visiting a friend at the Firdale Village Apartments the day of the fire, her mother said. The fire started in her friend's unit.

"She was full of life and beautiful and had lots of friends," Gail Hanks said. "And now she's gone."

A 1998 graduate of Shorecrest High School, Hanks loved riding personal watercraft and traveling, her mother said.

"My sister was a fun-loving, happy, carefree kind of person," said Hanks' stepbrother, Aaron Regis, 32. "She had a big heart."

Hanks was a former flight attendant based out of Chicago for Northwest Airlines, Regis said, and left the job because she was homesick. She recently went to work as a teller for the Northgate branch of Bank of America.

"She hadn't been here that long, less than a month," a spokesman at the bank said yesterday. "Her time here was short, but we all were attached to her in that short time. She was positive and energetic with customers ... we sympathize with her family."

Regis said her sister loved her job at the bank.

Hanks will be interred next to her father at an Edmonds cemetery. Robert Hanks died in 1989 of natural causes, her stepbrother said.

Joe Clenney, born and reared in Seattle, was in his second year at Shoreline Community College, said his grandmother, Rigmor Parsons of Seattle.

"We saw him Christmas Eve," Parsons said yesterday. "It was a lovely family gathering and he gave a nice Christmas gift. It's sitting here on my fireplace. It's a wrought-iron candleholder."

Clenney had moved into his Firdale apartment in August, his grandmother said.

"He was always kind and good-hearted," Parsons said of Joe, her first grandson. "It's like a bad dream you're going to wake up from."

Clenney's mother and stepfather and stepsisters live in Seattle.

Fire investigators spent much of yesterday ruling out any suspicious causes to the fire. The blaze is believed to be accidental, said Edmonds Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Taylor.

Of the 24 units in the K building, six were heavily damaged. The six units adjacent to those suffered moderate damage and the other 12 received slight damage, if any. Taylor said they might soon be habitable again. Residents were allowed into some of the units to recover personal belongings yesterday.

The fire apparently started in the living room of the apartment, where a fireplace was lit and Christmas lights had been strung, said Taylor. The fire reportedly started near the fireplace.