Apartment Fire Kills 9 in L.A.’s Westlake Area : Blaze: About 75, most of them Latino immigrants, flee from smoky building. Six of the victims are children.

A fast-moving fire choked a crowded apartment house in the city’s Westlake district with lethal smoke on Monday, killing at least nine people--six of them children--and forcing scores more to crawl through a suffocating pall to safety.

About 75 men, women and children--most of them impoverished Latino immigrants--fled in terror from the three-story building when the blaze erupted at 4:30 p.m. Some leaped from windows. Others clambered down metal fire escape ladders. Still others lowered themselves down sheets tied to wrought-iron balcony railings.

By the time firefighters pulled up, neighbors had formed a human chain clinging to the side of the building, passing small children hand to hand to those below. But despite valiant efforts, many fell victim to the smoke, which flooded hallways and open rooms, reducing visibility to near-zero.

“Suddenly, there was smoke everywhere and there was nothing we could do,” sobbed 29-year-old Elias Verdugo Vasquez, whose wife, Alejandria Roblero, perished in the blaze.

“We opened the door to the hallway and it was like a wall of smoke coming in. We were all panicked. We didn’t know what to do.”

As television helicopters hovered overhead, broadcasting the pandemonium, firefighters filed from the building, soot-covered victims limp in their arms. The bodies of toddlers were hustled onto stretchers. Unconscious women were resuscitated in a tangle of fire hose.

Three children under the age of 10 were dead on arrival at Childrens Hospital, and two more children were pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Hospital and one at California Hospital. Also pronounced dead at the scene were an elderly man and two pregnant women, one whose fetus emergency workers had tried--in vain--to deliver on the sidewalk outside.

Of 29 people treated at the scene, 18 had to be hospitalized, officials said. Scores more were evacuated to an emergency center at nearby Belmont High School, and were told they would not be allowed back into their apartments until later this week.

“We have a major tragedy on our hands here,” said Fire Chief Donald Manning, who added that fire doors that might have prevented the smoke from spreading had been propped open in the afternoon heat.

At the height of the blaze, more than 100 firefighters and 16 ambulances had been dispatched. Manning said the cause of the blaze was unknown and under investigation.

Manning said the fire apparently started in a unit on the second floor, and roared down the hall through an open front door. The 40-unit building, he said, had been equipped with fire alarms and operational smoke detectors, but not sprinklers, which are not required in three-story buildings. Residents said they had complained repeatedly of faulty smoke alarms, and said this had been the third fire in the building in three months.

None of the survivors reported hearing an alarm, Manning said, adding that firefighters were unable to find a smoke detector in the unit where the fire started.

About half a dozen units were burned. Most of the victims were caught in the smoke-filled hallways or in nearby units whose doors had been left open.

One of the first firefighters to arrive said he had to crawl along the floor to reach some of the victims.

“It was very black and the smoke was very thick,” said Fire Capt. Robert McMaster. “When I got up there, it was wall-to-wall bodies. I could feel at least four. They were not breathing.”

Most of the victims were on the building’s third floor, where firefighters found unconscious people piled in the hallway.

Standing on the sidewalk in a soot-blackened sport shirt that was once white, Vasquez, a father of four, wept as he described his escape. Leaving his wife with his three oldest children, he carried his 6-month-old baby daughter out a window and up onto the tiled roof.

By the time firefighters helped him down from the roof, he said, his wife and other children were nowhere to be seen. Then a coroner’s worker led him to a body covered in a white sheet.

“My wife is gone now, but all my hopes are with my other children,” he said as dusk fell, adding that he still was unsure whether the children--aged 11, 9 and 6--had survived.

“I pray to God that they all are well,” he said, tears spilling down his face.

Firefighters were able, however, to save many lives, including a child who clung to life Monday night in the burn unit at Northridge Hospital. Also among those saved was an eight-months-pregnant woman who went into labor as firefighters administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The woman and her two children were taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Times staff writers Nieson Himmel, Eric Malnic and Bob Pool and correspondent Sandra Hernandez contributed to this report.