Fireworks destroys Tacoma family's home and business. Dad says blaming someone is pointless

Edward Loftin kept his back to the burned out remains of his home Tuesday. His son, Nicholas, looked at the ground.

Between them was a pile of spent fireworks.

Just before midnight, Loftin was in the home he's rented for more than a decade in the 1900 block of South Yakima Avenue.

"I was asleep. I had been out back here working, cleaning my tools up," recalled Loftin, who makes his living as a handyman and landscaper.

It was Nicholas, reclining in bed, who first smelled smoke and then heard the crackle of fire. He looked out his window.

"All I saw were flames," said Nicholas, 22. He woke his father.

"The whole thing was engulfed so we ran to the front," Edward Loftin said.

The building, which also housed another tenant, is a total loss. There were no injuries.

On Tuesday, all of Loftin's tools, equipment and everything else the father and son owned were gone.

He estimated he lost $100,000. Nicholas lost the home he grew up in.

"What I have on right now is pretty much what I got out," Nicholas said.

A friend started a GoFundMe page to help the elder Loftin. He has renter's insurance, but not business insurance.

The pair have housing in a motel for a few days, thanks to the Red Cross.

"It's just me and him," Edward Loftin said. Nicholas' mother died when he was 3.

Nicholas graduated in May from West Virginia's Concord University with a business management degree and is about to join the Air Force.

"My biggest concern is that it doesn't set him back, being as young as he is," Loftin said. "When you get a little older you learn how to deal with adversity."

Loftin once smoke, drank, used drugs. But he gave that up when his son was born. Now, he prays and goes to church. He wants Nicholas to be a better man than he is.

"I always tell him choices have repercussions," he said. He would tell that to the people who burned his house, if he could.

Tacoma Fire spokesman Joe Meineke said fireworks are the suspected cause of the fire. Investigators have no suspects.

Loftin speculated that kids were walking down the alley, lighting fireworks, having a good time.

And not thinking about the repercussions.

He isn't looking to blame anyone.

"Doing anything to them is not going to change what has happened," he said. "It's all material stuff."

He looked at Nicholas.

"I thank God he was awake because if he hadn't been awake, it would have been a different story."