LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - A mother and son lost everything, including the newest addition to their family, in a recent fire in their Henderson home. The mother was already dealing with a debilitating disease, now she’s dealing with a new life challenge.
Her son describes the fire and its impact on both of them in an exclusive interview with FOX5.
“I’ve been kind of going back and forth between here and the old apartment to salvage what we can, and every time I do it, it pulls at my heart. Seeing everything that I like, 25 years of my life just burnt away, it’s crushing.”
MORE: Apartment fire in Henderson covers building in plume of smoke
It’s been two weeks since fire destroyed the apartment at Whitney Ranch and Patrick that Mattheo Severo Diaz shared with his mother for the past ten years.
“It hasn’t been the easiest. I haven’t had a restful sleep in like…since the fire. It’s kind of hard not to have a flashback of what happened. It’s the heat, I can almost vividly remember what happened, the heat, the smoke, everything.”
Diaz goes on to explain how it happened.
“My family is Jewish, and my mother had just lit the Shabbat candles, and I had just left the house for about 15-25 minutes when I get a call from my mom, I’m at Nellis and Harmon, and she’s like ‘Mattheo, the house is on fire.’”
He tells us, he turned his car around in a near-panic.
“I’m trying to rush back as fast as I can. I’m hitting every red light, I’m hitting all these cars. And I get back, and I can see this massive plume of smoke. I’m like, ‘Please don’t let that be my building. Please don’t let that be my building.’ And as I got closer and closer, it was my building,” he shares. “The fire, by the time I got to the house, was out of control. I couldn’t even get to the front door. My mom had to evacuate from the balcony.”
Neighbors managed to save one of their two dogs. The other did not survive.
“I had just gotten her that week, she was a very gentle dog. She was a two-year-old husky,” Diaz tells us. “She liked to do this thing where you would pet the back of her head and she would just laugh. She would not stop snuggling on me to get as much love and affection as she could.”
Diaz’s mother suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. He tells us she’s doing okay, but is very close to relapsing and had to be hospitalized on the day of the fire.
He’s cancelled his plans to attend summer classes at UNLV. He lost his computer in the blaze and has not yet had a chance to replace it. Besides, he says, he’s still dealing with the gravity of the situation.
“It’s hard to live when everything you had control of is just burnt away and you have to start fresh.”
Unfortunately, the family did not have renters’ insurance, so they have no help replacing all their personal possessions, like Diaz’s laptop.
The apartment complex won’t hold them liable for damages since it was an accident but they were asked to move to a different complex.
Copyright 2025 KVVU. All rights reserved.
