Apartment Fire’s Cause Determined

A fire that destroyed an Anaheim apartment, displacing a family of 13, was started by pressure from a box spring that cut through an electrical cord, officials said.

The blaze Monday night caused $100,000 in damage and left one person not only homeless but jobless. Mireya Sanchez, 23, who had been hired last week as a baby-sitter, was in tears Tuesday after finding out that she had been fired.

Sanchez, whose Leatrice Lane apartment was gutted in the 7:22 p.m. fire, called her employer Tuesday to say that she would not be at work because of the blaze.

“I was kind of upset because I think maybe she didn’t believe me,” said Sanchez, who has two sons, 4 years old and 2 months old. “But I told her that I needed to buy clothes for my babies and for my husband, and we needed to look for a place to live.”

Sanchez, the children and her husband, 23-year-old Jose Jimenez, shared the four-bedroom apartment with seven relatives, including two other children. Everyone escaped the flames, though one man suffered from smoke inhalation.

The Red Cross put up the family Monday night. On Tuesday, they returned to the apartment to assess the damage as maintenance workers began boarding up the ruined home. A mattress frame, a baby bed, melted stereo equipment and a charred television lay in the grass outside. Investigators said the blaze started in one of the bedrooms, which was empty at the time.

Two dozen firefighters from Anaheim, Garden Grove and Orange brought the blaze under control within 18 minutes of the first call. Most of the damage was to the one apartment. A neighboring unit sustained water damage.