Officials Disconnect Utilities, Bar Residents’ Return After Fire

Suspicious that a single-family home was being used as an unlicensed board-and-care facility, fire officials disconnected its utilities after dousing a small garage fire there Sunday and barred its seven residents from returning.

No injuries were reported.

Two residents were relocated with relatives, and five others were moved to a motel by the American Red Cross, according to Doug Gavilanes, a Red Cross spokesman.

Two of the seven residents were apparently related to the home’s owner, Gavilanes said, while the other four were believed to be boarders. None was elderly or disabled, he added.

Fire officials declined to elaborate on the shutdown of the home beyond voicing their suspicions.

Asked Sunday about the licensing controversy, Everett Mossings, the home’s owner, said: “I don’t know anything about that. We are renting to a group of people. We were paying for utilities. . . . But they were doing their own cooking.”

Fire officials said they responded at about 11:50 p.m. Saturday to a blaze in the garage of the residence in the 1900 block of Lomita Avenue. Residents and neighbors were awakened by the sound of exploding aerosol cans.

The flames were extinguished by 12:04 a.m. Sunday, fire officials said, and were believed to have been started accidentally from either smoldering “smoking materials” or rags used for furniture refinishing.

Investigators found evidence of both at the scene, according to a Fire Department spokeswoman, but Mossing said all of the rags were in the back yard and were being used to refinish redwood furniture there, not in the garage.

The flames caused about $20,000 in damage, authorities said. City officials are expected to inspect the home today to determine whether it was being used as a board-and-care facility.