18 people displaced by apartment house fire

AZUSA -- A fire blamed on an electrical space heater left running to close to a fuel source displaced 18 residents, including seven children, from an apartment building and caused about $300,000 worth of damage, authorities said.
The blaze was reported just after 9 p.m. at a four-unit apartment complex at 737 S. Lark Ellen Avenue, Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Richard Mejia said.
All the residents managed to get out of the burning building before firefighters arrived, the captain said, and no injuries were reported.
The fire started in a garage attached to one of the units, Mejia said.
A man who was living in the garage reported after turning on the heater, he awoke to a fire and tried to put it out himself before rushing to evacuate the others in the building, Mejia said.
The garage was completely destroyed, he said.
The apartment attached to the garage, which housed 11 people, sustained significant burn damage to a bedroom, the captain said. An adjacent apartment, which housed five people, sustained smoke damage.
Two unoccupied apartment in the complex were not damaged, he said, though officials red-tagged the entire building until it can be inspected and repaired
Mejia said about 30 firefighters extinguished the blaze in about 20 minutes.