7 Escape House as Blaze Kills Woman, 82

An 82-year-old Korean woman died inside a burning Rancho Palos Verdes home early Friday morning, but smoke alarms helped save six of the woman’s relatives and the family maid, authorities said.

Duk Bun Lee was found dead in an upstairs bedroom of the expansive home on South King Arthur Court, according to firefighters who extinguished the blaze about 2 a.m.--an hour and 15 minutes after it was first reported.

Lee apparently died of smoke inhalation when intense heat and fumes prevented her from escaping from the room in the back of the house, Los Angeles County firefighters said. But three younger generations of her family sleeping in the front of the house and a maid downstairs fled when the alarms sounded.

‘All Would Have Perished’

“They all would have perished in the house if the smoke detector didn’t wake them up,” Fire Department Capt. Rick Brady said. “We can thank the smoke detectors for waking them up and saving their lives.”

Brady said investigators determined that the fire was started by a malfunctioning electrical outlet in a downstairs family room in the back of the 5,000-square-foot home.

Lee’s daughter, Hyun Sook Kim, 55, broke both her ankles and a leg when she jumped from a second-story window to escape the flames. She was in serious condition at Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center. Other family members suffered minor injuries.

Ung Soo Kim, 33, the dead woman’s grandson, said in a telephone interview that he was awakened by the blaring of the smoke alarms about 12:20 a.m. Friday.

“I thought the alarm was defective,” he said, “but when I opened the (bedroom) door, I saw a lot of smoke and I could not breath. I heard my father yelling, ‘Fire! Fire!’ ”

Intense Heat, Smoke

Kim’s father, Syung, 59, ran downstairs to try to extinguish the fire but the heat and smoke were so intense that he was driven outside, his son said. Ung Soo Kim said thick, black smoke prevented him from finding a telephone and calling for help.

The younger Kim said he was able to open a bedroom window and crawl onto a roof over the garage, but he had to break the window in an adjoining bedroom to free his wife, Beatrice, 33, and sons, Benjamin, 7, and Bernard, 5.

All four then climbed down a ladder to the ground, where they were met by the two elder Kims and maid Byung San Kim (no relation the family), who had escaped from her downstairs bedroom and through the garage.

“We heard alarms and suddenly, in a couple of minutes, the whole house was burning,” Ung Soo Kim said. “I could not believe it.”

A neighbor called the 911 emergency phone line at 12:47 a.m., but when firefighters arrived four minutes later flames were leaping 60 feet into the air and much of the house was ablaze, Capt. Brady said.

Heat Drives Them Back

Rescuers tried to reach Lee’s bedroom window with a ladder, but the intense heat drove them back.

It took 36 firefighters 45 minutes to control the flames and another half an hour to extinguish the fire entirely, Brady said. Damage was estimated at $600,000.

Neighbors said the close-knit family moved into the home about 2 1/2 years ago.

The family operates an optical business in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, Ung Soo Kim said.