Aurora's Arsonist

Who mysteriously started Monday's fatal fire at this Aurora complex?

Hooded Man #2: Have we started the fire? 

Bane: Yes. The fire rises. 

~ in opening scene, 

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Look similar to the following building? Why?

James Eagan Holmes' apartment was located at Paris Street and 17th Avenue in North Aurora, Colorado, next to the Anschutz Medical Campus. Due to the television cameras watching the law enforcement operations dismantling booby-traps in the place after The Dark Knight Rises shooting, we know what it looks like (above).

Now, in a complex that looks quite like it, there was an arson fire that killed two people. Here's the location of the August 6, 2012, intentionally set fire:

The site is described as a four-story building across Peoria Street from the Anschutz Medical Campus, at the same intersection as the home of suspected killer James Holmes. The building is at East 17th Avenue and Peoria, less than 100 yards from the apartment building where Holmes lived before his arrest for the July 20th movie theater massacre.

Aurora fire officials are investigating the Monday apartment blaze that left two dead and 25 people injured as a possible arson.

When fire crews arrived, they found a building already engulfed in flames with some residents hanging from their windows to escape the flames. Aurora fire Captain Al Robnett said investigators received a report of someone fleeing the scene with a gas can and are investigating. But, Robnett said, investigators have not yet determined how the fire at the Fitz Apartments started or where it started.

Crews immediately started fighting the flames while others used ladders to rescue several people from their windows. In all, 25 people were in hurt, Robnett said, and 14 were rushed to area hospitals. Two people died from their injuries.

Robnett said the two people who died were on the building’s fourth floor. It’s not clear yet whether the victims were adults or children. Those who were injured were being treated for broken bones and smoke inhalation.

Autopsies for the two people who died have not yet been scheduled, according to the Adams County coroner’s office.

No firefighters were injured, Robnett said, and 16 fire department vehicles responded to the blaze.

The Red Cross Mile High Chapter set up a shelter for the building’s residents at nearby Paris Elementary School. The blaze forced the evacuation of not only 24 units in the building that burned, but also 22 in an adjacent building, the Red Cross said.

Despite how close the arson was to Holmes' apartment, Fire Captain Robnett told the media there's nothing to indicate a connection with the shooting.

Several questions remain, nevertheless: Who started the fire? Who died in the fire? What was destroyed in the fire? What was the motivation? Did someone linked to the fire know either James Eagan Holmes (who lived nearby), David Eden Lane (who lived in Aurora), or Wade Michael Page (who lived in Colorado for several years)?

Sources: 1, 2, 3.

Updates: Some answers....what do they mean?

A shooting in Aurora Tuesday afternoon left two people wounded. The injuries appear to be non-life threatening, according to police. The shooting occurred near East Colfax Avenue and North Kingston Street a little before 4:15 p.m.

A Laotian couple was killed in the Aurora apartment fire Monday night 9NEWS has noted. 

Bo Thammavongsa, 59, and his wife Dom Chanthavongsa, 65, never made out of apartment 404. Bo's stepbrother Kim Apaseuth had dinner with the couple at their apartment and watched the Olympics a few hours before the fire."And [police] come knock on the door," Apaseuth said. "They told me your brother passed away and your sister-in-law. I'm very sad."
Apaseuth was the couple's only family in Aurora, and he saw them almost every day for 15 years."God, I can't believe it," he said. "Yesterday we talked, ate, had fun. We watched the game together." 

Apaseuth says Bo was a Laotian veteran, now a custodian for Aurora public schools. He and his wife were married for 30 years. Bo and Dom came to the U.S. from Laos more than three decades ago. (9news.com)

At top is the flag of Laos, which was used from 1952 until the fall of the royal government in 1975. Laos' red flag then showed a white three-headed elephant (the god Erawan) in the middle.

Erawan is the Thai name of the mythological elephant Airavata, a mythological white elephant who carries the Hindu god Indra. It is also called Ardha-Matanga, meaning "elephant of the clouds"; Naga-malla, meaning "the fighting elephant"; and Arkasodara, meaning "brother of the Sun." Erawan/Airavata is depicted as a huge elephant with either three or sometimes thirty-three heads which are often shown with more than two tusks.