Girl Ignites Apartment With Butane Lighter : Fires: Four children and two adults are evacuated. Child says she was trying to keep her teddy bear warm.

A 5-year-old girl using a lighter to keep her teddy bear warm ignited a fire early Friday that caused $25,000 in damage to an apartment building, fire investigators said.

The fire, which broke out about 1:30 a.m., could have been kept to a much smaller scale had there been batteries in the smoke alarm, said Dennis Shell, an Orange County Fire Department spokesman.

“Carelessness almost took the life of a little girl,” he said. “This could have been a devastating holiday tragedy.”

The child, Robin, whose last name was not known by fire officials, was playing with a butane lighter in her apartment complex in the 10200 block of Fern Avenue. The lighter ignited Robin’s teddy bear, which she said she was trying to keep warm, then spread to the bedsheets and the mattress, Shell said.

“Once she saw that her bed was on fire, she went to middle of the room and just sat on the floor,” Shell said. “She was scared that she was going to get in trouble, so she didn’t tell anybody.”

An adult in the apartment, Ruben Torres, 34, “just sensed that something was wrong and went to check it out,” Shell said.

Torres evacuated Robin, three other children ages from 5 to 11 who were sleeping in the next room, and a 31-year-old woman. Investigators did not know if the children are related to Torres or the woman.

Carrying three hand-held fire extinguishers, Torres went back to the bedroom and tried to control the fire until help arrived. About two dozen firefighters extinguished the fire in 10 minutes, Shell said.

Afterward, the blackened blankets, clothes and toys were presented to the children as a way to counsel them on fire safety. The American Red Cross provided replacement clothes and blankets.

“They were devastated,” Shell said.