At 1:05 a.m. Tuesday, a 911 caller said heavy smoke was filling an apartment in a triplex at 3123 E. 42nd Ave., with one person trapped in a bedroom, fire department spokesman Al Tamagni said in a statement issued Tuesday morning.
The door, the caller said, was too hot to open.
AFD units arrived and removed the trapped man from the bedroom by 1:16 a.m., said Tamagni.
The victim later died at the hospital, he said.
His identity has not been released pending family notification. An autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.
The property owner's son Andrew Akulaw said the other victim was taken to the hospital for mild smoke inhalation, treated and released.
The blaze was what firefighters call a "room and contents" fire and was limited to the bedroom, Tamagni said.
"Nothing outside the room caught fire," he said. "The fire didn't even penetrate the walls."
Others living in the house were able to return to their homes despite minor damage, he said.
There's no official word yet on the cause of the fire, but there were no working smoke detectors in the apartment, Tamagni said.
The deceased man had been renting the property from owner Andrew Akulaw, said his son, also named Andrew Akulaw.
He had been living there for about a year, he said.
Akulaw claims the room had a working smoke detector when the man moved in.
"There was absolutely an individual smoke detector in that room," Akulaw said.
He said the deceased man smoked cigarettes in the room frequently.
Akulaw described a "main system" of tied-together detectors on the property as well. He was unsure whether that system had worked or not.
Akulaw's father, who lives on the property and was at home at the time of the fire, has been shaken by his tenant's death, his son said.
"It's unfortunate," he said.
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