Blaze Leaves Dozens of Apartment House Residents Homeless

Fourteen-year-old Zulma Partida’s school became her temporary home Tuesday after an early morning fire swept through a two-story apartment building in South-Central Los Angeles, leaving her and about 45 others homeless.

“I never thought this would happen,” the eighth-grader said, sitting with her family under the basketball hoop in the gymnasium of George Washington Carver Junior High. “I play here. . . . I never thought I would have to sleep here.”

About two hours after a 1 a.m. fire struck the apartment house, Red Cross officials relocated the tenants, including 10 children, into the gymnasium less than a block away. The fire at 632 Vernon Ave. caused an estimated $280,000 damage.

Fire officials said they have not determined the cause of the blaze, but most of the residents said it began shortly after a fight broke out among occupants of a first-floor apartment.

“There was screaming and fighting and the sound of windows breaking after a fight (broke out). . . . The next thing you know there was smoke and fire all over the place,” said Jesus Mandonado, 51, who shares a small one-bedroom apartment on the first floor with his brother and a friend.

Police and fire officials rushed to the scene and began evacuating the residents, most of whom were asleep when the fire started. There were no injuries.

Zulma’s mother, Leovigilda Castillo, 33, who is expecting a baby within days, said she did not believe her family would escape from the flames.

“The smoke and fire was all over. I thought we were going to get trapped. I was feeling the pains of my baby,” Castillo said through an interpreter.

It took firefighters less than an hour to contain the blaze. When it was over, six apartments on the first floor were destroyed and the remaining units were left uninhabitable by smoke and water damage.

There are 18 cramped one-bedroom apartments in the building. Some measure a mere 8 feet by 8 feet. On the second story, the ceilings are only four feet high in some places. Zulma, her two brothers, her mother and her stepfather paid $225 a month rent for the apartment they moved into three years ago.

Most of the residents said they lost all their belongings in the fire. “The only thing we have is the clothes we are wearing,” said Guadeloupe Rodriguez, 28, cuddling her 2-year-old son, Pedro. “We have nothing left.”