CONDO INFERNO KILLS FIVE YOUNG CHILDREN.

Byline: Samantha Gonzaga Staff Writer

CARSON - A fast-moving fire killed five young children Sunday when it ripped through the entire second floor of their condominium, authorities said.

It was unclear whether the four children who perished in the unit - three girls and a boy, between ages 6 and 9 - died of smoke inhalation before they were burned, said Andrew Olvera, a Los Angeles County Fire Department inspector.

A 10-year-old girl died shortly after being taken to Harbor Medical Center.

The cause and origin of the 8:22 a.m. fire was under investigation, Olvera said. Firefighters extinguished the blaze by 8:36 a.m.

All the adults in the apartment escaped unharmed, officials said. All of the children were found in the upstairs bedrooms.

``Where everyone else was is still unknown,'' said Olvera.

A multigenerational family of about 12 shared the four-bedroom unit at 8 Paradise Valley North, located in a tight-knit gated community. The children were two sets of siblings, neighbors said.

Friends and relatives of the families grieved and watched in disbelief as investigators used yellow tape to block the alley leading to the unit.

One mother collapsed, wept and screamed as younger relatives escorted her toward a car. One of the fathers stared with mute shock at the blackened roof of the condominium.

``I'm tired of talking about it,'' one of the family members said, before walking away to join her relatives.

The children were well-liked in the neighborhood, said neighbor Ofa Ngaue. Her six children attended the same schools and frequently played with them, and they sometimes came over for ice cream.

They attended the same schools - Catskill Avenue Elementary and Andrew Carnegie Middle School.

``They were really, really nice kids,'' said her daughter, Mafi Ngaue, 12. ``When you play with them a lot, you go out the next day, and they'll talk to you and tell you to come over. They were never mean.''

Another friend, 10-year-old Chris Mosley, described one of them as a ``good sport.'' He played football with them and other cousins in the grassy knoll lying at the center of the condominiums.

Sunday mornings are typically quiet in the neighborhood, Ngaue said. Families were either on their way to attend church services or slept in. The afternoons are usually busier, when the children come out to play and the parents hang out on their front stoops to chat.

But that tranquillity was absent as the Ngaues drove to church.

Thick impenetrable black smoke tunneled out of the burning condominium, she said. When the family members turned the car around to investigate, they saw a throng of neighbors standing near the condominium, dialing 911.

``I'm really sad for them,'' Mafi said. ``They're a really, really big family that's a good family.''