Apartment Fire Kills 1, Hospitalizes 2 : Tragedy: Batteries had been removed from a smoke detector.

A man was killed and two women were critically injured when fire gutted a Pasadena apartment where the batteries had been removed from a smoke detector, fire officials said Wednesday.

Battalion Chief Duncan Baird said the fire--confined to a single apartment in the 10-unit, two-story building--was caused by a cigarette left smoldering on a living room sofa.

The victims, who lived together in the one-bedroom apartment, were unconscious when Pasadena firefighters arrived about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Baird said.

A man identified as L. A. Maxwell, 35, who was in the living room when the flames broke out, was discovered in the bathroom shower, apparently having run there to try to extinguish flames burning through his clothes, Baird said.

Maxwell passed out before he managed to turn the water on, Baird said. He was rushed to St. Luke Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The two women, Ermacine Childs, 60, and Albitina Brown, 50, were asleep in the bedroom when the fire broke out and apparently never woke up, Baird said.

Brown was in extremely critical condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Baird said. Childs, identified as Maxwell’s mother, was in serious but stable condition there.

The fire was extinguished in about 30 minutes by two dozen firefighters. The building, in the 300 block of West Howard Street, suffered about $15,000 in damage, and the loss to contents was put at $9,000.

Baird called the incident an unnecessary tragedy.

“I feel very certain that had they had a battery in the smoke detector, all of this would have been avoided,” he said.