An investigation was continuing Monday into the deaths of three men in a residential fire in a Temple City neighborhood.
The fire was reported about 4:50 p.m. Sunday in the 6000 block of Sultana Avenue, just east of Rosemead Boulevard (SR-19), according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Fred Fielding. The fire was knocked down in half an hour.
Firefighters treated two additional patients and took them to hospitals in critical condition, Fielding said. No other homes were affected, he said.
The identities of the victims were not immediately made public. The cause of the fire was under investigation. ABC7 reported the victims were men.
Shortly before 8 p.m., the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced that the deaths were being investigated as possible homicides.
Sheriff’s Lt. Hugo Reynaga told reporters at the scene that a 64-year-old man who was a roommate of the deceased men approached deputies at the scene and was then detained as a person of interest, but detectives had not yet interviewed him because they do not speak Mandarin.
A possible motive was not disclosed.