Girl, 4, Killed in Fire Sparked by a Cigarette or Match
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A 4-year-old Inglewood girl was killed early Sunday in a fire sparked by a cigarette or match left smoldering beside her crib, officials said. Elizabeth Leyva was asleep in her crib about 6 a.m. when flames spread from a cigarette or smoldering match left by someone who had been smoking in the room about 10 minutes earlier, coroner’s investigator Dolye Tolbert said.
Her 11-year-old brother, also sleeping in the bedroom, was awakened by heat from the fire and ran out of the room to alert the rest of the family, Tolbert said. When family members returned to the burning bedroom, flames and intense heat kept them from rescuing the girl.
Firefighters doused the flames in the home in the 900 block of South Walnut Street at about 6:30 a.m. and found the girl’s body in her crib.
Eleven people, mostly members of the girl’s family or relatives, survived the fire, Tolbert said.
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