Karen FitzPatrick: Recent grad loved to cook, bake, sew, and help others

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YAKIMA - "Karen's Room. Note: Please Knock. Thank You," reads the hand-lettered note on 18-year-old Karen FitzPatrick's bedroom door.

Inside, photographs, books and stuffed animals compete for space, and a mirror is inscribed with the words: "Life is fragile. Handle with prayer."

"I'm still in shock," said FitzPatrick's sister Jaina, 22. "I can't believe she died."

Born two days after Christmas in 1982, "Baby K" or "B.K.," as her family called her, excelled in sports, was a 4.0 student and a born-again Christian who wanted to make firefighting her career.

She graduated June 8 from West Valley High School, where she was known for her smile and homemaking skills.

She was voted "Most Likely to be the Next Martha Stewart" by her peers, and she loved to cook, bake, sew, decorate - anything that brought beauty and comfort into the lives of the people she loved, her mother, Kathie FitzPatrick, said.

After graduation, she went through a week of firefighting training, which entailed camping and putting out a controlled burn. She'd been a firefighter for less than three weeks.

"I'm not sure I'm mad at anybody," her mother said. "It's one of those risky things you have no way of predicting."

Though she was good at sports, including gymnastics, she was not passionate about them.

If she were going to use her athletic skills, she wanted to do so leaping through a window to save kids, her mother recalled her saying.

FitzPatrick figured out how to do just that July 4, 1998, when a fire threatened the FitzPatrick home.

"Karen got out of bed and she was in her silky, short p.j.s," her mother said. "Then I saw her jump this 5-foot fence with two garden hoses going full blast."

After helping firefighters contain the fire, FitzPatrick made it her career choice. She planned to enroll in firefighting courses at Yakima Valley Community College in the fall.

Faith was a big part of who she was, said her father, John FitzPatrick.

In her bedroom hangs a framed picture of Jesus. Next to her light switch is the handwritten note, "Jesus, help me to love you with my life."

Family members said FitzPatrick was born again June 20, 2000, a date that was imprinted on the sole of her $350 firefighting boots, signifying the day they were made. She considered it a sign of her calling to God.

"The flesh part of me grieves over the loss of my daughter," her father said. "But the soul in me is leaping for joy for my daughter being in heaven."

Seattle Times staff reporter Christine Clarridge contributed to this report.