Man Dies in Fire in Northridge; 42 Are Left Homeless

A smoldering cigarette apparently sparked a fire that killed one man and sent other residents of a crowded Northridge apartment building fleeing for their lives, including a woman who was slightly injured when she jumped from a second-story window, police said Thursday.

The man who died--described by officials as a laborer from Mexico--was showering when the fire broke out about 8:30 a.m. Thursday and he was apparently unable to escape before he was overcome by smoke, said Detective Mitch Robins, a police homicide investigator.

Phillip J. Weireter, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said the cause of the fire at 19056 Bryant St. appeared to be accidental.

The victim was identified by roommates and neighbors as Guadalupe Godinas, in his early 50s, although the Los Angeles County coroner’s office had yet to make an official identification. He had lived in the $650-a-month, 960-square-foot apartment about two or three years, sharing it with two couples and their six children, police and residents said.

The woman who jumped out the window from an adjacent apartment was not identified. Weireter said she suffered minor cuts and bruises and was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center for observation.

Forty-two people, including 25 adults and 17 children, were displaced by the fire, which left all six units in the two-story building uninhabitable, said Anne Biege, a Red Cross spokeswoman.

Most residents were able to find housing with friends or relatives, but the Red Cross was providing shelter and clothing for the two families who lived in the apartment where the fire started, Biege said.

One resident of that apartment, Leo Rodriguez, 35, said he was standing outside a nearby liquor store, waiting for work as a day laborer, when he saw the flames and immediately feared for his wife and two children, ages 4 and 1.

“I saw the flames and came running. It’s my family, you know,” Rodriguez said. He said all his family’s possessions were destroyed.

Robins and other police investigators said at least four of the six adults who shared Rodriguez’s apartment were smokers. He said the fire started near a day bed that appeared to have been closed with a still-lit cigarette inside.

Smoke from the smoldering cigarette traveled along a wall and toward an open window, where fresh air caused an eruption of flames, Robins said.

Godinas collapsed in a hallway between the bathroom and the apartment’s front door, Robins said, but everyone else in the building escaped--including some women and children who were rescued by maintenance workers at the nearby Park Parthenia apartment complex.

Smoke detectors appeared to be working, but the fire spread rapidly throughout the building when residents neglected to shut their doors behind them, officials said.

The fire caused an estimated $225,000 in damage, Weireter said.