House Siege Ends in Man’s Death : Standoff: Ontario resident, who held police at bay for more than 24 hours, is believed to have died when the home was set ablaze, probably by a police tear-gas grenade.

A man who had barricaded himself inside a house for more than a day, exchanging gunfire with police and vowing not to be taken alive, apparently died when the structure caught fire and burned for more than an hour Wednesday night.

The fire probably was started by hot tear-gas grenades hurled into the house by police, investigators said. Firemen, kept at bay by the threat of renewed gunfire from the barricaded man, were unable to extinguish the blaze, which gutted the house.

Officers said that a body, believed that of 32-year-old Steven William Maushake, was found in the charred debris of the modest stucco home on Fawn Street about 8 p.m. An autopsy is scheduled.

The standoff between the officers and Maushake began shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday, when the heavily armed, six-year Army veteran began firing at his older brother, Michael, after an argument outside the home. The brother, who was not injured, escaped.

Maushake retreated inside the home, where his arsenal included several handguns and a large amount of ammunition, according to police. Over the next 26 hours, Ontario SWAT officers fired hundreds of rounds and lobbed tear gas, smoke bombs and flash bombs into the residence. Maushake returned the gunfire, refusing to surrender, police said.

“He made it clear that he wants to commit suicide,” Police Cpl. Jeffrey Miller said at the height of the siege. “He made a statement that he wants to take his own life, and if he can’t do it, the police can do it.”

For the first seven hours, Maushake fired rounds from windows on all four sides of the single-story house.

‘It was like a war zone out there,” said neighbor Al Westra, a retiree whose home was temporarily left without electricity when the cross-fire ignited a power line. “It was like the opening day of duck-hunting season.”

One police car was struck repeatedly by gunfire, but no officers were wounded.

At about midnight Tuesday, Maushake halted his fusillade and stopped answering phone calls from police negotiators.

There were no more shots from the house after that, but Maushake could be heard moving around inside throughout the day Wednesday.

“We spent the whole day trying to get him to answer the phone. We had no success,” Police Cpl. Diane Dudone said. “We tried the bullhorn. We had no success.”

In the afternoon, shortly after police had fired several tear-gas canisters into the residence, Maushake tossed them back out a window.

Residents of more than 20 houses in the line of fire were trapped inside their homes or evacuated. Some were forced to miss work and keep children home from school. Others had to sleep in their cars.

Officers kept firing the canisters into the house throughout the early evening on Wednesday, and a cloud of acrid fumes wafted over the neighborhood. Police theorized that Maushake was using a gas mask to withstand the barrage.

Then, about 6:20 p.m., a fire started that swept rapidly through the house. Small detonations that may have been exploding ammunition were heard as the fire burned.

Fire fighters wearing bulletproof vests confined the blaze to Maushake’s house, but fears that he might resume shooting kept them from entering the structure until the fire had burned itself out.

Police said the body was found in a bedroom.

Neighbors described Maushake, an unemployed factory worker, as a loner.

One neighbor said Maushake may have been upset by the suicide of his mother, who shot herself in the head more than a year ago. Police said Maushake’s mother had cancer when she committed suicide.

During the investigation of her death, authorities cleared Maushake of any culpability. However, authorities said he complained during the inquiry that police were violating his constitutional rights by questioning him about the possibility of foul play.

Police said Maushake made a similar complaint before the phone contact with him ended at midnight Tuesday.

“He mumbled about his constitutional rights, he mumbled about his dislike of police,” Miller said.

McDonnell reported from Ontario and Malnic from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Paul Feldman in Los Angeles contributed to this story.