House Fire Kills 2 in Long Beach

An elderly bedridden woman and her caretaker daughter died as they tried to escape an early morning fire Wednesday in their Belmont Heights home in Long Beach.

Eileen French, 90, and Christine Hill, 70, lived in the two-story home at 4827 Colorado St., said Battalion Chief Rick Pillsbury of the Long Beach Fire Department.

Both women were frail and restricted their activity to the first floor of the home, neighbors said. The exact cause of the fire was unknown, but the city had acted against the women in the past for keeping excessive debris inside and outside the home, Pillsbury said.

“The house had a history of code violations and correction notices were served on the property in 1998 for debris, overgrown shrubberies, and excessive combustibles,” he said, adding that the house had been kept cleaner since the notices.

Neighbors were awakened by the fire and the sound of windows bursting about 2:21 a.m. Firefighters found the small home fully engulfed in flames and extinguished the fire a short time later.

There were no smoke detectors inside the house, Pillsbury said, explaining that a detector’s “early warning would have probably been enough to get these two people out.”