WIDOWER LOST WILL TO LIVE, FRIENDS SAY CAUSE OF BLAZE THAT KILLED RECLUSE REMAINS UNCLEAR.

Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY -- Neighbors of a loner and recluse who died in a fire earlier this month recalled a man who was somewhat of a mystery and had never recovered from the death of his wife.

John Frazier, 79, was found dead Dec. 22 when his house in the 4100 block of Eve Road caught fire. He died from inhaling smoke and carbon monoxide, and his body wasn't officially identified by the Ventura County coroner until this week, partly because officials were having a hard time finding relatives of the solitary elderly man.

One of the few people who knew Frazier well was a neighbor who lost her husband and her mother earlier this year.

``He was like a lost soul without his mate,'' said Charlotte Weldon, who talked regularly with Frazier, recalling that his wife died of a heart attack in 1989. `` ... The holidays have been nasty, seeing my neighbor die the way he did.''

Other Simi Valley neighbors said they hardly ever saw Frazier, but from what they could tell, he was a kind and partly disabled man who wanted to help people if he could, although he generally kept to himself.

Nadia Hurtado, one of the neighbors who gathered Dec. 22, said Frazier's home, with its sagging garage, looked like it was abandoned even before the fire.

She had lived on the street for two years before realizing someone resided in Frazier's home, calling him ``very much a recluse.''

An ambulance driving by on the Ronald Reagan Freeway reported seeing smoke coming from Frazier's home about 6 a.m. Dec. 22, and the Ventura County Fire Department put out the flames shortly after. Even before the flames were doused, a firefighter went inside the burning house in an attempt to rescue Frazier, but found him dead.

The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, but neighbors said he frequently lit fires in his fireplace during cold weather to keep himself warm.

He was from the Boston area, coming to the San Fernando Valley decades ago and apparently moving to Simi Valley in the early 1970s. The former construction industry insulation installer had been Weldon's neighbor ever since she moved to Eve Road 23 years ago, she said.

At his death, his property consisted of a small house on a half-acre. But he once owned more land in the area, which he had sold over the years, she said. The area is still semirural, with some people keeping horses and other animals, including roosters that were crowing on the morning Frazier died.

``It was hard for him because his knees were not that great and he had crippled-up hands,'' Weldon said. ``I talked to him several times about moving into a senior complex, but he said he couldn't stand being that close to that many people all the time.''

Frazier's self-appointed job every day was to pick up Weldon's newspaper, take out the sports page and the TV guide and put the rest on her porch, she said. On trash day, he would put out her trash cans and bring them back. ``He was always making sure I was doing OK,'' she said. ``If he saw somebody who needed help, he was the first one out there.'' In the end, though, his wife's death crushed him, she said. ``After a while he just lost the will to do things,'' Weldon said. ``Life just wasn't that important to him any more. ... It doesn't help when you turn off the lights and there's nobody there.''

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Firefighters probe the cause of a fire that destroyed a home on Eve Road in Simi Valley on Dec. 22, killing the 79-year-old owner.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer