Mother Dies in Fire Trying to Save Children

A 29-year-old mother was killed in a predawn house fire Wednesday after she charged back into her Cudahy home thinking her three young children were still inside, authorities said.

Myra Ramirez, a Compton gas station cashier, was found dead in the living room of the three-bedroom house, county fire officials said. The other nine residents--including the victim’s two boys, 9 and 4, and a girl, 11,--were treated at two area hospitals for smoke inhalation and lacerations.

“She thought her children were still in their room,” said Nancy Ramirez, 19, a friend of the victim’s brother. “But really, they came into our room and we helped them out.”

A team of 25 firefighters responding to the 4:10 a.m. blaze and extinguished it within eight minutes, County Fire Inspector John Holt said. Investigators believe the fire began accidentally in the living room of the single-family home in the 5200 block of Live Oak Street.

Holt said the tragedy should remind people to designate a meeting place outside their homes in case of fires.

“Under the mass confusion, people just scattered,” he said. “This probably wouldn’t have happened if they would have had an escape drill in the home.”

County Fire Capt. Steve Valenzuela said people should also remember to “never go back in” once they escape a fire.

The names of the nine survivors were not immediately available, but authorities said they apparently represented two different families and ranged in age from 4 months to 57 years.

Landlord Louis Chavez, who lives next to the scorched house, said he gave a smoke detector to the tenants when they first moved in about a year ago, but they never installed it.

Nancy Ramirez acknowledged that she and the other residents had not bothered to install the smoke detector. It took the sound of children “screaming and pounding on the door” to awaken her, she said.

She described the victim as a loving mother who had only recently gotten off welfare after finding a job.

“Everything she did was for her kids,” Ramirez said.

Damage to the home was estimated at $130,000.