Fire Started by 6-Year-Old Kills 3, Injures 4 in South Gate

A woman and two children were killed and four others were injured when a fire ignited by a 6-year-old playing with a cigarette lighter swept through a South Gate garage apartment that had no smoke alarm, fire officials said Wednesday.

Two single mothers with five small children were in the tiny guest house at 9227 Dearborn Ave. late Tuesday night when two of the children--who had been momentarily left unattended in the living room--flicked the lighter and accidentally ignited lace draperies, said County Fire Capt. Steve Valenzuela.

Within moments, Valenzuela said, the room was engulfed. By the time the younger of the two little boys ran to the next room for their mother about 10:25 p.m., the entire house was on fire, he said.

Valenzuela said the mother, Juana Hernandez, a 39-year-old visitor who was spending the night with her 6- and 4-year-old sons, rushed to the living room and tried to rescue them.

“As far as we can tell, she managed to get out with the 4-year-old through a kitchen window,” the captain said. “But the older boy didn’t make it” and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Meanwhile, the occupants of the house, 31-year-old Maria Castillo and her three little girls, sought refuge in the two back rooms, Valenzuela said. Firefighters found Castillo, an unemployed Salvadoran maid, locked in a bathroom with one of her 3-year-old twins; her older daughter, 8-year-old Erica, was found unconscious in the unit’s sole bedroom with the other twin, the captain said.

The twins survived, but Erica was pronounced dead at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood an hour after the blaze. Castillo, who was taken to Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center, died Wednesday evening after lingering on a life-support system for almost 24 hours.

City and fire officials said the three-room apartment--which had been constructed as a duplex rental unit at least 40 years ago--lacked a smoke detector. Smoke detectors, Valenzuela said, have been required in all multiple family units since 1987 under the county fire code.

The South Gate City Council called an emergency meeting for 5 p.m. today to discuss whether the city should pass a smoke detector ordinance of its own. But fire officials said the flames spread so rapidly that it was unclear whether the devices would have helped.

“It all happened so quickly,” said neighbor Gabriel Roque, 40, who tried to save Castillo’s family but was driven back by the flames. The tragedy, he and others said, was only the latest hardship for Castillo, who had been forced to stop working after the birth of her twins, one of whom had a disabling heart defect.