The San Diego Union-Tribune
SAN DIEGO — A 12-year-old boy died and two of his siblings were critically injured when a fire, possibly sparked by a space heater, ripped through a Mount Hope home early Monday morning, a fire official said.
Firefighters rushed to the burning house on J Street near Toyne Street where the three children were trapped. When they arrived about 12:30 a.m., the home was already engulfed in flames, San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Lee Swanson said.
Crews attacked the blaze and firefighters found the children in a back bedroom. Two of them — a girl and a boy believed to be around 6 and 8 — were carried out of the home and rushed to the hospital. The oldest child had died.
Swanson said the kids had been home with a babysitter and her boyfriend when the fire broke out. The woman’s boyfriend was seriously burned and was taken to a hospital. Two firefighters also were hurt; one had burns to his ears and the other had a knee injury, Swanson said.
A neighbor, Jose Hernandez, stood feet from the charred and gutted home late Monday morning. Piles of burned belongings were out front, children’s books among the debris.
He said he had been getting ready for bed when he noticed flames coming from the roof. Another neighbor broke down the home’s front door, but it was too hot and smoky to get inside, Hernandez said. They both began breaking windows on the side of the house after hearing the children screaming inside, but they couldn’t reach them before the house ignited.
“It was like ‘whoosh.’ That’s what you heard. We were thrown back,” he said.
Hernandez said the children’s mother, Juanita Castro, was on her way back to San Diego after dropping her daughter off near Chico State University. Neighbors called to tell her of the fire, but no one wanted to tell her one of her sons had died, he said.
The boy’s father, Sal Castro, headed to the hospital, thinking his son had been injured in the blaze. Before he got there, he was told his son didn’t survive.
“He was destroyed,” said Emma Palma, whose granddaughter is married to Castro. “We’re praying that God will give them the strength to get through this.”
The boy who was killed was a seventh-grader at Millennial Tech Middle School, a San Diego Unified School District spokeswoman said. Grief counselors were being sent to the campus for staff and students who needed support, she said.
Palma said the boy would go to his dad’s house on some Fridays.
“He was a really nice little kid. He would behave. He liked football,” she said. “He was too young.”
Hernandez said he’s known the two younger children since they were born. “They were just two adorable kids. She always did what her brother did,” he said. “It’s so sad. All of this.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but fire investigators suspect it started when a heater ignited a blanket or some other combustible material, Swanson said. Temperatures in San Diego dipped into the low 50s Sunday night.
The blaze caused about $400,000 in damage to the home and its contents.
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