Man Rescues His Family but Dies in Fire : Tragedy: He went back into burning home to place an emergency 911 call and is overcome by smoke.

A 42-year-old Glendora man, who already had led his wife and two children safely out of his burning home, ventured back inside early Wednesday to place a call to firefighters.

Smoke overcame the man and he was found dead in the ruins.

Safouin Alimohammed died at 4:14 a.m.--seconds after placing a 911 emergency call as his 38-year-old wife, 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter waited outside, Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector John Lenihan said.

“The tragedy is that he went back in the house to make the 911 call,” Lenihan said, “instead of going to a neighbor’s house to do it.”

Lenihan said the family was sleeping when their son, who had apparently moved his bed closer to an electric wall heater during the night, “woke up coughing and choking and got up to get a glass of water. When he returned to the bedroom he was confronted by fire and smoke.

“At that point, he ran to the rear of the house and alerted the family.”

With his family safely outdoors, Alimohammed reached inside the front entrance to call for help from a nearby telephone, Lenihan said.

Unable to dial out, Alimohammed ran back into the house, down a hallway and into a bedroom to use another telephone.

“He called 911 and said, ‘We have a fire in our bedroom,’ ” Lenihan said. “They said, ‘Just get everyone out of the house, we’ll be right there.’ That was the end of the conversation.”

With smoke and fire blocking him from escaping through the front entrance of the 1,300-square-foot ranch-style home on East Walnut Avenue, Alimohammed attempted to reach a side door.

“He got within two feet of that side door and succumbed to smoke,” Lenihan said. “He probably could have made it had he crawled--the smoke level in the house had come down to about three feet.

“People have a fear of fire, but not smoke,” he said. “They try to tough it out and the carbon monoxide gets to them.”

It took firefighters about 10 minutes to knock down the blaze, which officials said caused $125,000 in structural damage to the home and another $35,000 in damage to contents, including two automobiles.

It was not clear whether the house was equipped with a working smoke detector.

“A working smoke detector would have solved their problem,” Lenihan said.

In another house fire Wednesday evening, Los Angeles city firefighters battled flames that destroyed a home in the Mid-City area, displacing 11 people--including five children ranging in age from 6 months to 10 years.

Cynthia Seastrunk, 25, mother of three of the children, said no adults were present when the fire started. She had been in the home shortly before the fire started and had left to buy cigarettes at a nearby gas station.

“When I came back, the house was in flames, “ she said. We lost everything.”

According to Seastrunk, the fire was started by an electric heater in a bedroom and spread to the front of the house in the 5800 block of West Ernest Avenue. She said her 8-year-old daughter ran across the street to a friend’s house to summon help, and everyone got out safely.

Seastrunk said she and five other adults lived in the house, including her grandmother, two sisters and their husbands, and the five children.

Seven engine companies responded to the alarm shortly after 6 p.m. and put out the flames in about 30 minutes. Damage was estimated at $225,000.