Fire Kills Woman Who Aided Needy

An elderly woman who offered food and shelter to the homeless was killed Tuesday morning in a South-Central Los Angeles house fire that injured six others, fire officials said.

Lue Corpuz, 85--known to many as “Mama Lue”--died in the 2:05 a.m. blaze in the 200 block of East Adams Boulevard near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, said Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells.

The fire was caused by an electrical short in the basement, Wells said. Damage was estimated at $175,000. The house did not have smoke detectors.

Firefighters said “pack rat conditions”--bags of clothing, blankets and furniture--inside the house fed the fire and hampered rescue efforts.

“It was difficult gaining access into the structure initially because of the items stacked behind the doors,” Wells said. In their rescue efforts, firefighters threw mattresses and furniture out the windows.

Corpuz’s body was found in the front hallway. A coroner’s inquiry is pending.

Family and friends said Corpuz collected the supplies, in addition to food, to help the needy.

“Everybody was her child,” friend Bettye Levi said of Corpuz.

Corpuz had been renting the rooms of her two-story white house to several tenants, charging them only what they could afford.

Four people were taken to area hospitals and treated for injuries.

One woman, 36, suffered back injuries and third-degree burns on her hand after jumping out a second-story window, Wells said. A 44-year-old woman who also jumped hurt her back and legs.

One man, 65, suffered cuts on his feet, and an 88-year-old man suffered cuts on his wrist.

A 43-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were treated at the scene for cuts on their hands, Wells said.

Tuesday morning, three of Corpuz’s grandchildren waded through the high piles of debris in the front yard, searching for her papers and Bibles.

Daughter Gertrude Hayes pointed at a stack of Bibles and canned food on top of the refrigerator, saying they were being saved for the less fortunate.

“She put everybody before herself,” Hayes said, adding that Corpuz was an active member of Greater First Love Church of God in Christ. Previously a preacher, Corpuz used to stand at the corner of 8th street and Broadway with a Bible, preaching to passersby.

“People would come here if they needed help,” she said. “She would give them money and a place to stay, trying to win them over to the Lord.”

Shaking her head, she added, “They aren’t going to find [another] Mama Lue.”

Levi said that she often came to the house to talk with Corpuz on the porch.

“They called this a landmark,” she said of the now-blackened home. “Everybody knows Mama’s house on Adams.”

Levi said that Corpuz, who always made room for one more guest, had said that once someone entered the front gate, “they were out of harm’s way.”

About 10 people had been staying in the four-bedroom house when the fire broke out. The Los Angeles chapter of the American Red Cross will help five adults displaced by the fire find shelter, said Barbara Wilks, a spokeswoman for the agency.