Man Dies as Fire Sweeps Care Home : Tragedy: Other residents of facility for mentally and physically disabled escape.

A 34-year-old man was killed Thursday night when a fire swept through the first floor of a board-and-care home for the mentally and physically disabled, firefighters said.

The victim, whose family lives outside California, was found in a first-floor bathroom of Christian Residential Care, Westminster Fire Capt. Craig Campbell said.

Three other disabled adults who lived in the home were evacuated without harm.

The cause of the fire, which did $275,000 damage, is under investigation, Campbell said. “There’s nothing left there,” he said.

Campbell said firefighters received a call from a caretaker at 6:50 p.m. and could see a column of smoke rising from the two-story house from their Westminster fire station more than a mile away.

A team of 20 firefighters extinguished the blaze in 10 minutes.

The leased facility, in the 15700 block of Candlewood Street, has been operated for four years by Rita Mills, 51, who said she was “in shock.”

One of the two resident caretakers in the home told firefighters he was upstairs when a smoke alarm went off. As he came down the stairs, he said, he saw the back of the house on fire and grabbed the first resident he saw and pulled him outside.

When he went back into the seven-bedroom house, the caretaker said, he was stopped by a wall of fire.

Other staff members got the two remaining residents out.

A fifth resident who is physically disabled had left earlier in the day to spend the weekend with family.

Melody Psigan, 24, Mills’ daughter, said she was out having her nails done when the fire started.

She said the victim, who was mentally disabled, liked to listen to music and watch television. He was “a very happy guy,” she said.

Mills said the victim had been at the home for four years.

“He was already like my son,” she said.

Maria Suzara, operator of a boarding house two doors away from where the fire occurred, was housing two of the adults who had to evacuate Thursday night. The men, who are in their 40s, had gone to bed before the fire. They fled the home in their underwear with help from the staff, Suzara said.

The men were shaken, and one of them kept trying to leave Suzara’s home to return to the board-and-care facility. The other residents of the facility were taken to a board-and-care home in Garden Grove.

Ruth Heimer, who lives next door to the facility, said that when her dog barked, “I walked between the two houses and all you could see was flames and black smoke.”

Heimer said the residents were quiet and well dressed, and appeared to be well cared for.

Correspondent Geoff Boucher contributed to this report.