Utility shutoff leads to three deaths in Oakland, California apartment fire

At around 2 a.m. on December 30, a fire broke at an apartment in Oakland, California, killing three and leaving only one survivor. The fire was sparked by an overloaded extension cord used to provide heat and electricity from a downstairs apartment after power had been cut off upstairs.



Ruth Mejia and her two daughters, Alisson and Ivonne, along with her live-in boyfriend, Guillermo Reyna-Flores, were residing in the apartment when the fire erupted.

Reyna-Flores heroically rescued seven-year-old Alisson and returned to the apartment to save the others, but perished in the fire along with Mejia and three-year-old Ivonne.

Alisson’s father, Nelson Benavides, was in the custody of immigration authorities when the fire broke out. He had been scheduled to be deported back to El Salvador, but this has been indefinitely delayed until a custody decision is made on his daughter.

Ruth Mejia had recently lost her job as a housekeeper and began to fall behind on bills. On December 2, PG&E turned off the family’s power in the dead of winter when temperatures generally fall to the low 40s Fahrenheit. They fell even further during an unusually cold winter in Alameda County this year.

PG&E had “no comment” when contacted by the WSWS.

Out of desperation, the family connected extension cords from a downstairs apartment to use as a power source. The cord became overloaded and began setting off sparks that lit the furniture on fire, leading to the blaze. However, the apartment did not have any functioning smoke alarms that would have alerted and potentially saved the family.

These inadequacies might have been addressed by the landlord, but the apartment had only an absentee landlord: the Bank of New York Trust. The apartment had gone into foreclosure in August 2008 and was taken over from the previous owner by the bank.

Josue, the family’s neighbor, said that he had never once seen anyone monitor or do work on the apartment, which remained in a permanent state of disrepair. The Bank of New York Trust had “no comment” when contacted.

It's illegal here in Conn.

I rarely turn on my heater. I grow orchids outside here year 'round. It gets chilly, but not cold enough to die from indoors.

It's only 7 degrees outside right now.

The electric companies cut off power in the spring if you owe and have to restore it by October.