House Fire Kills Grandmother, 5 Children : Tragedy: Wiring malfunction is suspected in Hawaiian Gardens blaze.

Five children and their grandmother were killed when a fire tore through their modest Hawaiian Gardens home early Thursday as neighbors and firefighters tried to rescue them, in one of the deadliest house fires in Los Angeles County history.

Investigators said they suspect that the fire, which engulfed the one-story house at 12:30 a.m., may have started when the structure’s internal wiring malfunctioned.

“The house is all wood. Old, dried wood,” said Steven Peguero, the only public safety officer in the tiny southeast Los Angeles County community. “When it went up, it went up fast.”

Neighbors tried to douse the flames with a garden hose and a Hawaiian Gardens police officer sprayed the Seine Avenue house with a fire extinguisher. Firefighters tried to break through the back of the house to rescue those inside while the blaze was still leaping into the sky, but the flames were too intense, said Fire Inspector Greg Cleveland.

The children--Tiana Cruz, 13; Anthony Cruz, 6; Lydia Cruz, 3; Terina Gollette, 11; and Angel Gonzales, who was less than a year old--were being tended by Josephina Gonzales, 69, their grandmother.

The victims were found in the home’s two rear bedrooms. Investigators said they probably died of smoke inhalation, but a coroner’s inquiry is still pending.

Linda Gonzales, the mother of two of the children, was asleep in an unattached garage nearby when the fire broke out, fire officials said. She was unhurt.

George Gollette, the grandfather of two of the children, shook his head and watched with tears in his eyes as smoke slowly rose from the debris about 8:30 a.m. In the frontyard, a child’s plastic go-cart sat half-melted and covered with soot. When the last of the fire trucks pulled away, neighbors, friends and relatives were left to stand and stare at the slick, blackened remains of the pink house.

Linda Gonzales’ brother, Antonio Gutierrez, said he was at a friend’s home when Linda came running in, shouting that the house was on fire.

“It was engulfed in flames. There was nothing I could do,” Gutierrez said. “All I could do was pray.”

Frank Nunez, who lives across the street, said he connected three garden hoses and tried to put out the blaze before fire crews arrived. “I tried to help them,” he said. “I was so sad.”

Neighbors remembered the children as affable youngsters who were growing up happily, despite the fact that their family could not afford to buy a Christmas tree. Gutierrez said he acted as a father to the children.

“They were good kids. I taught them the rosary,” said Gutierrez, adding that he regularly took them to confirmation classes at a nearby church. “I tried to teach them what was right and wrong.”

Tiana Cruz was in the seventh grade at Fedde Junior High School. Terina Gollette was a fifth-grader at Venn W. Furgeson Elementary School, where Anthony Cruz was in the first grade.

The children were frequently left in the care of their grandmother. Josephina Gonzales, who had lived in the house 40 years, had arthritis and used a walker, said Antonia Ribas, who added through an interpreter that she was a longtime friend of the family.

Suzanne Benoit, who teaches at St. Peter Chanel Parish, said she often brought food to the family. When she had coffee with Josephina earlier this week, she said, the grandmother told her that she wanted to move out of the house.

“That house was a mess, if you want to know the truth,” Benoit said. “There were bugs crawling on the walls. There were holes in the walls.”

“We’re a small community,” said Mayor Robert Canada, who consoled family members on the sidewalk outside the house. “When I was called by a resident, I was requested to come out here, and I came. I think this is going to make [the neighborhood] come together. The residents here will come together.”

Canada said numerous people had contacted City Hall and offered to help defray the cost of the damage, estimated at more than $125,000. City officials routed donations to a fund they established at the Bank of America. Canada said there was also a pledge of help from the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation, a charitable group operated by a Florida physician who plans to help run a casino in Hawaiian Gardens. Voters recently approved the controversial casino by a narrow margin.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles offered to provide burial plots for the victims.

The fire was one of the deadliest ever in a Los Angeles County home.

In May, a house fire in San Marino killed five people and seriously burned a sixth, the father of that household. Authorities suspected he had set the house ablaze in a scheme to kill his wife and collect on a $500,000 life insurance policy he had just taken out on her. But he died from his injuries as authorities were preparing to charge him with murder.

Four people were killed in 1988 when a fire broke out in a Montebello home hours after a family birthday party. Two others died within a week as a result of their injuries. There was no smoke detector in use, but firefighters later found one, still in an unopened box in the front hall closet.