No Smoke Detectors in Mission District Apartment Where Fire Killed Two

A San Francisco Fire Department investigation of a blaze that killed two members of a Mission District family last March has found their three-bedroom apartment lacked smoke detectors.

Investigators' report on the incident (embedded below) was released Friday and recounts how firefighters rescued all five members of a family living in a second-floor unit above a liquor store at 24th Street and Treat Avenue.

The family's father, Mohamed Shaibi, 38, and his 13-year-old daughter, Amal, later died of smoke inhalation. Shaibi's wife and two sons were hospitalized but survived.

One of the couple's children, identified only as "Witness 7" in the report, told investigators he was asleep on the bottom bunk in a bedroom he shared with his younger siblings. When he awoke, he said, he could see smoke and hear his parents shouting that there was a fire and warning the children, "Do not come out this way!"

As the bedroom filled with smoke, the witness said, he handed one of his younger siblings -- apparently a 6-year-old boy -- to a firefighter on a ladder at one of the bedroom's windows. In the meantime, though, his other sibling -- apparently Amal -- had vanished.

"... He feared [Amal] ran out the door to the hallway," the report says. [Witness 7] said he searched for [Amal], but smoke and heat condition worsened in the room and he was extricated down the ladder by firefighters."

Firefighters later found Amal Shaibi unconscious near the top of the apartment's entrance stairway.

Fire investigators found the accidental fire started in the apartment's living room, adjacent to an entertainment center and television stand.

"In the area we located the burned and fire damaged remains of stranded copper wiring and fire damaged electrical cordage," investigator Robert Mateik wrote. "We located the remains of a melted and fire-involved electrical component fused to carpet material."

The report says the blaze was "mostly likely caused by an unspecified electrical fault or failure involving electronic components or a power strip."

When firefighters arrived at the building, they also found two people trapped inside a liquor store on the first floor. The entrance to the store was padlocked and firefighters had to cut off the locks to free the pair, who had apparently been sleeping in the store.

The blaze was one of several large fires last year that prompted Supervisors David Campos and Jane Kim to push for stronger protections for tenants of older apartment buildings.

In November, a task force created on the heels of those fires called for stricter fire alarm standards.

California law requires smoke detectors in all rental units and makes landlords responsible for ensuring that they're in working order.