LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The drab San Bernardino residential hotel where four people were killed in a trash can fire had a history of fire and safety code violations, City Attorney James Penman said Sunday.
Penman said the batteries had been replaced on numerous smoke detectors after an August fire inspection at the Sunset Hotel. Those repairs, he said, probably saved a number of lives. Fire doors also were installed last month.
More than 90 people lived in the beige stucco hotel, where rooms rent for $425 a month. Many occupants have alcohol and drug problems, and some had been placed there by the San Bernardino County mental health department, Penman said.
Battalion Chief Mike Alder of the San Bernardino City Fire Department said the hotel has been closed in the wake of the blaze and residents, many on Social Security or disability pensions, have been housed temporarily by the Red Cross.
Fire spread through the hotel's top floor in the darkness of early Saturday morning, killing four people and injuring 17 more. Firefighters rescued 30 people, including infants and children, many of whom were screaming for help from hotel windows, Alder said.
A day later, two unidentified victims remained in critical condition with burns and respiratory problems. Two other victims, 73-year-old George Vonos and 44-year old Dusty Allison, both of San Bernardino, were upgraded from critical to serious condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center, said Julie Smith, a hospital spokeswoman.
The dead were identified as Michael Stevens, 50; Gregory A. Abdun-Nur, 34; Harold M. Turman, 41; and Robert Downs, 49, the hotel's night manager. All were residents of San Bernardino, Alder said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Downs was found in the landing near the third floor elevator with a fire extinguisher beside him. He had apparently taken the elevator, something fire officials had warned him against after an earlier fire, Alder said.
``Our fire captain warned him then, 'don't get in the elevator during a fire,' but that's what he did,'' Alder said.
The fire started in a 32-gallon trash can on the top floor, where residents said trash had piled up periodically. Firefighters in the past few months had doused two previous trash can fires at the hotel, including a Nov. 8 fire in the same third-floor container.
The hotel had no sprinkler system, but it passed the August fire inspection, Alder said.
