Early Morning Fire Kills 2 in Santa Ana Home

A raging fire ripped through a cluttered Santa Ana home, killing two people Wednesday morning, fire officials said.

Neighbors awakened by an explosion shortly after 3 a.m. called 911, but authorities said firefighters had to navigate around debris in the packed house and were unable to save the two victims, who had been severely burned.

The bodies of a 31-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman were found in the bedroom of the ranch-style home in the 1000 block of South Elliott Place, authorities said. Their names were withheld pending notification of relatives.

“We don’t know if they got trapped in the bedroom, or if they just never woke up,” Santa Ana Fire Department Capt. Randy Black said.

Black said a leaky gas line to the water heater may have sparked the blaze, which gutted the home.

Black added that the house was filled with collectibles and furniture, which fueled the blaze and made it difficult for firefighters to search for victims.

“The amount of stuff . . . in the house made it more difficult to maneuver and to put out the fire,” Black said. “There were just small areas to walk between stacks of newspapers and stacks of magazines, collectibles and furniture.”

The fire in the Santa Ana tract, where several residents keep horses, dogs and roosters on ranch-style properties, had neighbors fearing for their animals.

“The explosion woke us up,” said a next-door neighbor who wanted to be identified only as Linda. “It shook the house so hard, I thought it was an earthquake.”

Sleepy and confused, she looked out the window and saw the neighboring house ablaze, with flames edging toward her fence. “My first thought was the horses,” she said. “I jumped out of bed, called 911 and got the horses across the street.”

Neighbors said they believe the dead man was the grandson of the woman who owned the property.

Although he lived in the home, the grandmother visited often, said neighbor Rex Waterman. He said the young man would sometimes borrow a few dollars for gas or other emergencies--money his grandmother always repaid, Waterman said.

Black said the department had been called to the house at least once before, about two months ago, to extinguish a small kitchen fire.

Neighbor Dennis Judd, 47, said he initially thought the explosion was holiday revelry.

“First, I thought it was fireworks because it was Halloween,” he said.

Wednesday’s blaze began shortly after 3 a.m. and raged for about 50 minutes before the 28 firefighters from Santa Ana and Fountain Valley Fire Departments brought it under control.

An investigation into the cause is continuing, Black said.