Mother, 2-Year-Old Son Killed In South LA Garage Fire
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A woman and her 2-year-old son were killed Wednesday in a South Los Angeles garage fire, officials said.
The fire was reported at 11:41 a.m. in the 100 block of East 50th Street, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Firefighters said there was only moderate smoke coming from a converted garage when they arrived on scene.
"During that attack, we found the body of an approximately 2-year-old patient that had been overcome by smoke and flames," Los Angeles Fire Deputy Chief Joseph Castro said.
Mother, Toddler Killed In South LA Garage Fire
They tried to revive the boy but he was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. After it took 30 firefighters nine minutes to knockdown the fire, officials found the body of a the boy's mother.
Friends of the family told KCAL9's Cristy Fajardo the child had a 8-year-old sibling who was at school at the time of the incident.
South LA Garage Fire Kills Mother, 2-Year-Old Boy
Their deaths marked the 10th and 11th fire-related fatalities in 2014, officials said.
The cause of the fire was under investigation by the LAFD's arson team.
The LAFD told KCAL9 Randy Paige there were no signs of a smoke detector anywhere in the garage.
Neighbor Alytino Brown told Paige that he and his wife smelled smoke for some time but didn't see a fire.
"The next time we looked up there was a blazing inferno," said Brown.
Firefighters did not know if the garage conversion was legal or up to code.
