Three Children Killed When Flames Engulf Pacific Palisades Home

Three children who had been left in the care of a housekeeper were killed in a fire that swept through their Pacific Palisades home Monday night, authorities said.

Witnesses said the children were a girl, 7, and two boys, both 5.

They were in bedroom on a lower level of the split-level ranch-style home in the 16500 block of Akron Street when the fire broke out at about 9:30 p.m., Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief Chuck Merriman said.

The youngsters’ parents, Steve and Patricia Allwright, were attending classes at separate schools when they returned home at about 10 p.m. to find their wood-frame house reduced to charred rubble and learn that their children had died, officials said.

“Oh, my babies,” sobbed Patricia Allwright as her husband tried to console her. “I knew one of us should have stayed here.”

Merriman said officials were unable to immediately determine whether the housekeeper, who survived the blaze, was with the children when the fire broke out.

She was led away from the burned home crying: “My children, my children.”

Two brothers who happened to be driving by stopped and, with a pipe, attempted to break into the home to rescue the youngsters, but were unsuccessful, witnesses said.

One of the brothers, Adam Lukakis, later said “There was just no way” to reach the children. “I took as much smoke and broken glass as I could take.”

Both men were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, officials said.

Embers from the blaze were blown by winds to the roof of a home next door, but the flames were quickly extinguished, Merriman said. That home belongs to a man with a history of heart problems, and paramedics transported him from the scene in an ambulance, officials said.

Ellen Archibald who lives a few doors from the Allwright home said “part of the upstairs collapsed and fell into the downstairs. If anyone was in there, they didn’t make it out.”

Firefighting units arrived within 10 minutes, she said, but the house was already engulfed in flames.

Gloria Whang, 17, who lives nearby, said she “went up there with my mom, and I could see the whole house was gone. Then I could hear this lady screaming.”

Panos Koulermos, a neighbor, screamed, “Oh, my God,” upon learning that three children had been killed in the blaze. “The whole house just went up.”

Residents said the Allwrights have lived on the block for about two years.

The cause of the fire, which was controlled in about 27 minutes by 30 firefighters from six engine companies, was under investigation. Authorities said the home was not equipped with smoke detectors.

Times staff writers Nieson Himmel and Edward J. Boyer contributed to this article.