Cigarette Near Oxygen Tanks Likely Sparked Fatal Long Beach Fire

LONG BEACH, CA — Authorities Friday identified a woman killed in a fire at her Long Beach condominium that left her husband with moderate injuries.

Firefighters sent to 38th Place near East Ocean Boulevard about 11:30 p.m. Monday pulled the woman from the building and paramedics took her to a hospital, according to the Long Beach Fire Department.

Karen Tobin, 61, died at the hospital, the coroner's office reported.

Fire officials told the Long Beach Press-Telegram they believe a lit cigarette near oxygen tanks sparked the fire that killed the bedridden woman.

Alarms from a home oxygen therapy device in the victim's room awoke her husband, who had been asleep upstairs, Jake Helfin of the Long Beach Fire Department told the newspaper.

"As he came down, he noticed the fire, tried to put the fire out, but was unsuccessful in that," Heflin said.

The pair then attempted to escape together, but the husband was unable to place his wife into a lift to get her up a flight of stairs, and she was trapped, the Press-Telegram reported.

City News Service; Photo: Shutterstock