Trapped by Window Bars, Three Die in House Fire

Relatives, neighbors and firefighters today tried desperately to pry off iron window bars in time to save people trapped in a burning house in Rosemead, but they failed and the three inside--one of them an 18-month-old infant--were killed.

Rosa Garcia, 51, and her 18-year-old daughter, Mercedes, were pronounced dead at the scene. Rosa Garcia’s infant granddaughter, Desiree, was rushed to the Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, but physicians were unable to revive her.

Four other residents of the two-bedroom home--Rosa Garcia’s son, Renaldo Garcia Jr., 27; his pregnant fiancee, Darla Cardiel, 17; his cousin, Alicia, 23, and her 3-year-old son, Adrian--managed to escape safely.

Cardiel said she was in the one-story stucco house shortly after 2 a.m. when Renaldo Garcia Jr. came home and said that he smelled something burning.

“He ran to one of the bedrooms and opened the door, and all this smoke came out,” she said. “All three of them--Rosa, Mercedes and my daughter--were stuck in there. He tried to get in, to get to them, but he couldn’t. . . .

“He . . . got an ax and he and some of the neighbors tried to pull the bars off. He got some of them off, but there was too much fire, too much smoke. . . .

“His sister kept screaming his name, ‘Ray! Ray!’ And you could hear his mother crying. Then, after a while, you couldn’t hear them any more.”

Firefighters wrenched off more of the bars, but it was too late to save the victims, a fire captain said.

A neighbor said Renaldo Garcia Sr. put the bars on the house to “beautify” it.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.