Three days before a candle likely ignited a Oakland apartment house blaze that killed four people, inspectors ordered a dangerous extension cord removed from the same room where the fire started. The news, revealed in an interview Tuesday with Oakland Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini, raises the possibility that a resident of the second-floor room was using a candle because electricity was no longer available.
“That might have been the case,” Sabatini said. That question, and whether the extension cord feeding electricity from elsewhere in the building had actually been disconnected, will probably be part of the ongoing investigation into the fire, she said.