Fire Kills 3 Living in Garage

A woman and two of her granddaughters died early Wednesday in a fire that swept through a Sun Valley apartment in what officials said was an illegally converted garage.

Maria Magdalena Gonzalez, 44, Joanne Lizette Paz, 7, and Janessa Naomi Paz, who was almost 3, died despite frantic efforts by their father and a neighbor to save them. Relatives said the three were sleeping in a bedroom with no windows, which may have hindered their escape.

“I saw the grandmother through the window standing in the living room saying, ‘Help! Help!’ She panicked. She froze. . . . We couldn’t do anything,” said neighbor Rick Martinez, 28, who tried to douse the flames with a garden hose.

The children’s father, Manuel Paz, 28, had managed to escape with his wife, Lourdes, 28, and 1-year-old daughter, Gabriela, but was driven back by flames when he returned to rescue the others, Martinez said.

It was the second time in four months that an illegal garage dwelling has been the scene of a deadly fire.

A fire killed five children in December in an illegally converted Watts garage. There are estimated to be thousands of such dwellings throughout the city, although the city prosecutes only about 50 such cases in the San Fernando Valley each year.

Arson investigators and principal city building inspector David R. Keim are investigating Wednesday’s fire.

“This garage was illegally converted to a dwelling unit without a permit,” Keim said. “A lot of work has been done on the rear of the building without a permit. A permit is insurance--insurance that the work is legal, and more important, safe.”

In this case, a windowless back bedroom had been built into the garage--a clear and dangerous violation of the city building code, Keim said. That bedroom was the one that Gonzalez and the girls slept in, according to relatives.

Neighbors said garages converted to dwellings are common in the area, renting for as little as $350 per month.

The flames ended Gonzalez’s lifetime of effort to improve her lot and that of her granddaughters.

Relatives and neighbors described the family as devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Gonzalez as a determined woman who left Culiacan, Mexico, taught herself English and built her own clothing business, only to lose it to bankruptcy.

“She struggled her whole life--struggled and suffered,” said her sister Blanca Alicia Berrelleza, 47, speaking in Spanish.

Berrelleza said Gonzalez, the third of nine children, had weathered the loss of her husband and the bankruptcy of her business in recent years, events that prompted her to seek refuge in the Jehovah’s Witness faith, converting from Catholicism.

Throughout her life, she had kept a lively sense of humor and a strong desire to advance.

“Once she had an idea, she would do it,” Berrelleza said, her eyes brimming. “She had an obsession: to move forward. She wanted a good future for her granddaughters.

“This is a nightmare.”

Martinez, who said his father owns the garage apartment, said Manuel Paz told him that the fire started in extension cords used to power the television set and video recorder and quickly swept through the garage interior.

Martinez said the fire caught the family asleep. The girls’ parents ran outside through the flames in the living room, and Manual Paz immediately turned to go back in, but it was too late, Martinez said.

Joanne stumbled as she tried to run out of the living room, they said. Gonzalez stood in the living room with Janessa, crying for help as she was consumed by the flames, Martinez said.

“It’s hard to see someone in flames, asking for help and you can’t do anything,” he said.

The garden hoses they were using to spray the fire seemed to have no effect.

Gerardo Suarez, 21, nephew of Manuel Paz, said Paz was driven outside because he could not breathe in the smoke, intending to return for the others after he filled his lungs with air, but the flames engulfed the building faster than he anticipated.

Firefighters tried to revive Janessa, who had been handed through a broken window--it was not clear by whom--but were unsuccessful. They fought the blaze for about 20 minutes before extinguishing it, said Los Angeles city Fire Department spokesman Alan Masumoto.

Berrelleza said Gonzalez usually slept with the two older girls in the bedroom without windows, while Manuel and Lourdes slept with Gabriela in the other room.

Keim, the building inspector, said the original house and garage in the 8800 block of Ilex Avenue had been built in 1941.

The garage was expanded in 1949. In 1975, the owners obtained a permit to convert it to a recreation room. But the permit did not allow a kitchen, nor did it allow the garage to be used as a dwelling.

Martinez, who said his father rented the garage to the Pazes, declined to speak in detail about the arrangement. But he denied that the dwelling was illegal.

“There are two versions to every story. We believe we did everything properly,” he said, adding that the family has retained a lawyer.

The fire became part of the debate Wednesday at City Hall over how to allocate federal Community Development Block Grant money.

In a hearing before two City Council committees, lower-cost-housing advocate Melanie Stephens cited the fatal blaze as a clear example of why the city should not reduce any federal funding slated for housing programs.

“There isn’t sufficient quality affordable housing in this city. This is an example,” Stephens said of the fire.

“Tremendous numbers of people are living in substandard housing.”

Lower-cost-housing advocates have been fighting Mayor Richard Riordan’s plan to cut nearly $14 million from programs aimed at providing homes for some of the city’s poorest residents.

Meanwhile, at Fernangeles Elementary School in Sun Valley, teachers and students wept at the loss of a quiet and affectionate student who was called Joanna by friends and relatives.

“She was very sensitive,” said Lucy Salcedo-Cruz, who taught the young girl last year. “When another kid was feeling sad or had a problem, she would intervene or she’d come and tell me.”

Joanne enrolled in a bilingual first-grade class at Fernangeles last year and although she was shy, she also cracked jokes, and was always happy to give a hug, teachers said.

“She was a precious child--on the quiet side, but very perceptive,” said Principal Elisabeth Douglass.

Times staff writer Sharon Bernstein contributed to this story.