2 Toddlers Killed in House Fire

A garage that had been converted into a bedroom became a deathtrap for two toddlers who died early Wednesday just strides away from a man who was unable to rescue them as fire swept through the bedroom and an adjoining house in Lynwood.

David Glen Moore, 2, and his brother, Maceo Davonne Moore, 1, died in the fire that broke out shortly before 1:30 a.m. in the 3200 block of Palm Avenue, Lynwood fire officials said.

Joseph Hunter, 41, who was sleeping in a den connected to the boys’ bedroom, was awakened when he heard them screaming in terror, said Andrew Brim, who rents the house.

Hunter opened the door to the boys’ bedroom and was met with intense heat and smoke, said Brim, 63.

“He could see the kids when he first opened the door, but he couldn’t get to them,” Brim said.

A coroner’s spokesman said an autopsy is scheduled for today to determine if the boys died of burns or smoke inhalation.

There was an electric heater in the boys’ bedroom, Lynwood Assistant Fire Chief William Schultz said, but the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Hunter awakened Brim and a baby-sitter who gathered up three other children, ages 1, 3 and 4, and escaped from the fire through a kitchen door. Brim said he has custody of those three children, whose mother is incarcerated.

The back half of the house was burning, and “fire was rolling out of windows in the den” when firefighters arrived, Schultz said, adding that firefighters extinguished the blaze in less than half an hour.

The dead boys’ mother, Gina Hodge, 26, had gone to a store before the fire erupted, Brim said. She was so distraught when she returned and learned that her sons were dead that she was taken to St. Francis Medical Center, where she was treated and released, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Brim said that about a month ago he had allowed Hodge and her two children to move into the converted garage without paying rent.

“Some friends asked me to let her stay there until she could get on her feet,” he said. “I loved those little kids. I played with them every day. They thought I was their daddy.”

Brim said the house’s owner, who has moved to Alabama, converted the garage to a bedroom for his son.

Schultz said the fire caused more than $80,000 in damage to the building and its contents.

“It cleaned me out,” Brim said. “I don’t have any insurance.”

The fire is yet another indication of the desperate means that poor families may be forced to take to find shelter. Unable to afford better housing, many are cramming into garages and back-yard sheds.

In Los Angeles, more than 30,000 families live in garages or storage rooms, according to a January, 1993, study by the city’s Housing Department.

Lynwood officials said they are investigating whether the garage conversion was legal, but they noted that it is illegal in California to sleep in a garage.

“It is also illegal to sleep in a room with a door that opens to a garage,” said Bill Palmer, Lynwood’s manager of building and safety.

He said that it is virtually impossible to determine from the street if a garage has been converted and that his inspectors cannot enter at random. Illegal conversions usually come to his department’s attention when they are reported by neighbors, he said.