Who’s to Blame for Fatal Fire?

Gloria was killed in a small but intense fire that flashed through one of Santa Barbara’s Lower Eastside storage yards last month. Responders found the homeless woman’s body where she was sleeping, outside on a mattress laid across plywood propped up on cinderblocks. Gloria’s death and the fire itself, according to investigators and the surviving victim, are suspicious, and the probe into who or what started the blaze is ongoing. So far, little information has been publicly released — even Gloria’s full name is being withheld until her family in Oklahoma can be tracked down and notified. She was known on the streets as Gigi.

Justin Mezey, who says he helps homeless women in distress to make good with God, rents the section of the 2 South Quarantina Street property that erupted in flames the evening of November 17. He lived full-time in the fenced 10-by-60-foot lot, flanked by other squatters, contractors, and scrap-metal artists, all of them nestled in the often overlooked, occasionally dangerous industrial corner of the city that reeks of processing trash. When the fire began, Mezey said he was sleeping in his trailer with the TV on. He escaped, but suffered third-degree burns on 25 percent of his body, only recently returning to Santa Barbara from a Los Angeles treatment center.

“Her screams woke me up,” said Mezey, gingerly wiping tears with a hurt hand. “If she didn’t wake me, I’d be dead,” he went on, explaining why he would only meet in an out-of-the-way location to talk: Someone is trying to kill him. Looking skyward and sobbing heavily, Mezey cried above the sound of surf and seagulls at Leadbetter Beach, “I lost my Gigi! I told her she’d be safe! Do you know how much that weighs on me? How much do I have to carry, Lord?”