Robert E. Staff died attempting to rescue Virginia M. Staff from burning, Avalon, California, October 21, 2001. Ms. Staff, 78, was spending the night in a first-floor room of her and her husband’s two-story house when an electrical fire broke out in a wall of that room. Her husband, 83, retired physician, fled the house from its second floor, as did tenants living on that floor. Outside, Staff realized that his wife had not exited the house, and he immediately re-entered it, through the front door. Firefighters arriving within minutes found the room of origin engulfed by flames. Staff and his wife were removed from that room after the fire was extinguished, but they could not be revived. Both had died of effects of the fire.
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