Security Setup Traps Man in Fatal Store Fire

C.P. Peterson installed the heavy mesh screens and bars on the windows and doors of his corner market to keep thieves out.

Friday morning, the security devices became a deathtrap for Manuel Duran, a man Peterson considered a good friend and one who, like Peterson, was trying to protect the business.

Duran, who acted as the store’s night watchman and who slept there each night, was unable to get out when an intense fire engulfed La Tienda Familiar--The Family Store--and three nearby buildings in the 5800 block of Compton Avenue in the Florence District.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and firefighters worked desperately to reach Duran, who beat on the store’s windows before he apparently was overcome by smoke. His partially burned body was found in the charred rubble.

The cause of the blaze has not been determined, but investigators “think it was electrical,” said Fire Capt. Mike Rodriquez.

Two small dwellings behind the store that Peterson also owns were badly damaged by the fire, leaving a family of five and a couple homeless. A garage and nearby business were also damaged. No one else was injured.

“All we lost were material things,” said Peterson on Friday afternoon, as he stood outside the store’s blackened front entrance. “The loss of (Duran’s) life is irreplaceable.”

As he talked, a stream of residents from the low-income neighborhood filed in and out of the store, carrying away, with Peterson’s permission, boxes of salvaged goods. Most of what was inside the store was lost in the raging fire.

Peterson, 47, of Altadena said that Duran may have been unable to find keys to the door and security gate, perhaps because he had panicked.

The store owner said that he had known Duran, who was believed to be in his 60s, for about five years. They met after the older man retired from his job as a boilermaker at a business across the street.

Duran began spending time around the store, Peterson said, “and we just sort of adopted each other.”

On Thursday, Peterson said, Duran was his usual quiet self when the store closed about 10:30 p.m.

Firefighters got the first call four hours later.

When they arrived, said county Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Sandeman, sheriff’s deputies were there trying to free Duran. The deputies, Sandeman said, heard Duran “trying to get out. He was pounding on the windows.”

Because of the security bars and heavy screens, “the deputies couldn’t get to him,” Sandeman said.

Firefighters arrived “about three or four minutes after the call,” and found that La Tienda Familiar was “almost totally engulfed in flames, flames were 40 feet in the air,” Sandeman said.

Firefighters tried to cut through the barred and screened windows with rotary saws but, because of the intensity of the blaze, were unable to rescue Duran.

The fire was put out about 30 minutes after 35 firefighters arrived, said Sandeman, who praised them for keeping the blaze from spreading further.

He said that fire officials estimated damage to the structures at more than $100,000.