26 Injured, 47 Homeless After Blaze Damages Downtown Apartment

Fire swept through the top floor of a downtown San Diego apartment building early Saturday, leaving 47 homeless, injuring 26 and causing $800,000 in damage, authorities said.

The blaze, which began at 12:20 a.m. Saturday, started when a hot iron ignited a wood cabinet in one of the Casa Grande Apartment bedrooms at 1140 B St., investigators said.

After smoldering for hours, the fire erupted, engulfing the bedroom in flames, which shot out the window, officials said.

The blaze raced through the attic area, above ceilings, and spread to the eastern end of the building, fire spokesman Dan Gobel said.

Smoke alarms sent startled residents scrambling to windows, onto fire escapes and into the stairwells of the three-story building.

Many of those in second- and third-story apartments jumped to safety. One woman reached out of her top-floor apartment windows, waited for those gathered below to pull open blankets, and dropped two of her babies, one at a time, where they were rescued, witnesses said.

All of the injuries were relatively minor as 18 tenants, six firefighters and two San Diego police officers were treated for smoke inhalation at local hospitals, officials said.

In all, about 100 firefighters responded to the blaze, including those assisting from the Naval Training Center and Naval Station at 32nd Street, officials said.

The building’s 47 tenants were taken to the downtown Howard Johnson hotel by the American Red Cross and will probably stay there through the weekend, said Nancy Jordan, a Red Cross spokeswoman. The organization will pay for clothing, food and lodging, she said.

Three of the building’s 25 studio and one-bedroom apartments were destroyed in the blaze and many were damaged by smoke, fire Capt. Al Macdonald said.

Macdonald said the entire roof would have to be replaced. About $70,000 in contents were destroyed, he said.

Apartment manager Norman Hyde, 34, awoke to shouts of, “Fire! Fire!” at 12:30 a.m., and took his 8-year-old son, Jeffrey, outside to safety.

During the fire, all of the smoke detectors were sounding, Hyde said, “until they melted off.”

Some witnesses were astonished to see a woman holding her baby out the window as she screamed for passers-by to help.

Irma Marquez, 43, said she heard the shouts of warning shortly after the fire began, and stepped into her third-floor hallway, only to find it thick with black smoke.

With her own one-bedroom apartment beginning to fill with smoke, Marquez said that she opened her windows, and had her three children keep their heads outside.

As the fire spread toward her apartment, Marquez’s daughter, Catherine, only 15 months old, and her son Omar Noe, five months old, began to choke.

“The children, the smoke was getting to them, they were coughing,” Marquez said.

Down below, 10 to 20 people were holding a blanket, waiting to catch the babies, said the eldest daughter, Dalne Marquez, 14.

Irma Marquez dropped her son first and then her daughter.

With the babies safe, Irma and Dalne Marquez waited to be rescued.

“We waited for about 10 minutes, then the firefighters put up a ladder so that we could climb down,” Irma Marquez said.

Once safely on the street, Irma Marquez said she rushed over to a woman who was holding Omar Noe, and then to a man who was holding Catherine.

The family was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center for examination and released late Friday night, Marquez said.

One eyewitness to the dramatic rescue was still amazed as she recounted it Saturday afternoon.

“We saw three people standing with their heads out of the window. One lady was screaming, ‘My baby, my baby!’ to guys on the street,” said Pam Einhorne, who was heading toward her car on 11th Avenue.

“One of the guys that lived in a lower apartment ran in and got a blanket,” Einhorne said. “I was thinking, ‘Don’t throw the baby,’ and I saw the mother was dangling the baby by arm and leg.”

The men below had the blanket stretched out, and were waving for the mother to toss the baby, she said.

“As the police and firemen drove onto 12th Avenue, she let the baby go,” Einhorne said.

The men on the street caught the baby, and Einhorne rushed over to hold the child.

For manager Hyde, Saturday morning’s fire was particularly heart-rending.

Hyde was one of the city’s many homeless until he began managing the premises one month ago.

Placed in charge, Hyde said that he was working to rid the building of several troublesome tenants, who, he said, abused drugs and skipped rent.

Instead, he wanted a better grade of people who would take advantage of affordable housing for $300 to $400 a month.

“We were just in the process where we could get some good families in here,” Hyde said.