14 Hurt, Others Left Homeless by Hotel Fire

About 80 people were left homeless by an early morning fire that swept through a two-story apartment hotel in Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles on Wednesday, forcing some residents to jump from second-floor windows to escape the flames.

Fourteen people were injured--four of them seriously--when the 5:44 a.m. blaze gutted the red-brick Brooklyn Hotel at 2420 E. Brooklyn Ave., causing an estimated $225,000 in damage, Los Angeles city fire officials said.

Six firefighters were among the injured, suffering minor burns to the face, ears and arms when the water they poured on the flames turned into steam and “bit them,” fire Inspector Ed Reed said.

Took 35 Minutes

Firefighters from 15 engine companies extinguished the flames in about 35 minutes.

The blaze apparently broke out in the hallway of the second floor and quickly engulfed the building. Virtually everything in the building was declared a total loss. Some residents fled in their underwear. “I look silly in my shorts, but I’m alive,” one resident said in Spanish.

Many of them said they first learned of the fire when they were awakened by Omar Ponce, 36, who pounded on their doors. “I started running to other doors, knocking and yelling for the people to leave,” he said. “In five minutes, the whole place was on fire.”

Not everyone, however, believed Ponce at first.

“When he said there was a fire, I thought he was drunk,” said Maria Preciado, 20. “I didn’t want to open the door. I told him, ‘No, no. You’re drunk, crazy.’ ”

Smelled the Smoke

But she then smelled the smoke and saw the flames. Preciado, who had lived in the hotel for about two weeks, quickly grabbed her 2-year-old daughter, Neli, and escaped.

Joe Medina, 20, said he and his brother, Jesse, 24, jumped from the window of their second-floor apartment. “We heard some yelling, ‘Fuego, fuego (fire, fire),’ looked out in the hallway and saw nothing but smoke,” Joe Medina said. “We just dropped over the side.”

Two of the seriously injured, one suffering from smoke inhalation and another from injuries suffered from a fall, were taken to California Hospital Medical Center. The other two were admitted to White Memorial Hospital. Twenty-four of the hotel’s residents who were left homeless were taken to nearby Roosevelt High School, where the Red Cross set up an emergency shelter.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.