Fire Took 3 Lives--and Part of a Neighborhood’s Heart : Tragedy: Maria Castillo, who died along with a daughter and a friend’s son in South Gate blaze, ‘was the kind of person you liked to be around,’ a nephew says.

On the last day of her life, 35-year-old Maria Castillo spent the afternoon as she often did--chatting with a neighbor, watching her three young daughters play with her nephew as he kicked a soccer ball.

She would sit on the patio between her sister’s house in South Gate and the little guest house behind it that Castillo rented from her for $500 a month. A latticed canopy covered in bougainvillea created a shady arbor for Castillo and the friends who visited, often with children.

“She was the kind of person you liked to be around,” said her nephew, Milton Castillo, 26. “The whole neighborhood knew her. They would gather here and talk and talk.”

In fact, on Tuesday night, she was settling in for an overnight visit with her childhood friend, Juana Hernandez, and Hernandez’s sons, Eddie, 6, and Jairo, 4, when a devastating fire engulfed the house.

According to Milton Castillo, the Hernandezes were supposed to be sleeping in the front room while the two women and girls were in the bedroom. But the 6-year-old began playing with a lighter, and suddenly, lace curtains erupted in an inferno.

Hernandez and her 4-year-old survived, but Eddie was pronounced dead at the scene. Maria Castillo’s eldest daughter, Erica, 8, died later that night at a hospital, and Maria lingered for 24 hours on life support before dying Wednesday evening. Her 2-year-old twins, Vicky and Jessica, remained hospitalized Thursday at UCLA Harbor Medical Center, both of them in critical condition.

Maria Castillo had never had it easy in Los Angeles, arriving 10 years ago from the town of San Miguel in El Salvador. She had no job, she was estranged from her husband, she spoke no English.

But Maria had created for herself a warm and vibrant life, filled with children and family. When she arrived from El Salvador she lived with her 54-year-old sister, Ana Soto, and her children--including Milton Castillo--in a house that Soto had managed to buy after years of hard work. Two years ago, Maria moved into the guest house.

Soto was in El Salvador the night of the fire, caring for her ailing mother. When she called home to Los Angeles on Wednesday and was given the news, “for a moment she lost control,” Milton Castillo said.

By Thursday she was at the bedside of Maria’s children--as the younger sister would have wanted it.

Only five weeks ago, Maria Castillo had told her sister of a horrible premonition, said Milton Castillo. “She kept complaining--she was getting a lot of headaches and she said she was going to die soon,” he said. “She said she wanted my mother to take care of the twins.”

She was, according to family and neighbors, a devoted mother. She had worked for a while as a maid at a Glendale home, but after her twin daughters were born, one of them--Vicky--was found to have a disabling heart condition. Maria Castillo quit her job and cared for her daughter, administering the numerous medicines she required, nursing her after open-heart surgery six months ago.

“She even won an award at UCLA for being a good mother,” Milton Castillo said. “It was from the doctors and all the staff members.”

And Vicky Castillo had been leading a more normal life, able to play with other children. “She was doing so well,” said Milton, “that they said she probably wouldn’t need another surgery.”

As he talked about his aunt, Milton stood on the patio. Yellow police tape cordoned off the guest house, now just a shell with charred window and door frames. Inside, the remains of a sofa bed lay blackened and upended. Outside, a rosebush stood burnt.

From across the fence, the owner of the adjoining house fretted about the closeness of the fire and the number of people who died.

“They always put so many people in one place,” Afton E. Wallace said.

Milton Castillo listened impassively, hiding any annoyance that he might have felt.

“That’s reality,” he said. “In a lot of Hispanic neighborhoods, they have a lot of people living in one apartment.”

What was more of an issue here was the lack of smoke detectors in the guest house--although fire officials are not sure that the devices would have made a difference in such a swift fire. Nonetheless, on Thursday, the mayor of South Gate called for an emergency ordinance mandating smoke detectors in every dwelling, and the City Council approved it.

Elizabeth Coreas, 8, sat watching as neighbors came by to comfort family members. Erica was Elizabeth’s cousin. “She was my best friend and my best cousin,” said Elizabeth. “She wanted to be a teacher--just like me.”

Like others who came to the house, Elizabeth had her favorite memory of her aunt--a woman who would always buy the girl ice cream from passing vendors.

Amid the charred ruins, relatives fished out one memento, astonishingly intact. It was Castillo’s photo album, blackened at the edges, a little damp from water, but full of pictures that captured her as the family remembers her: long, wavy, dark hair, softly smiling, surrounded by her children.

Times staff writer Simon Romero contributed to this story.