One dead, one hospitalized in house fire near downtown Modesto

One person died and another was burned in a fire at a small house just west of downtown early Monday.

Fire crews were dispatched at 4:11 a.m. to reports of the fire at Maze Boulevard and Madison Street, said Modesto Fire Deaprtment Division Chief Michael Lillie. They arrived to find a roughly 600-square-foot house well involved, and a burn victim in the street, he said.

A bystander told firefighters another occupant of the house was unaccounted for. After the burn victim outside was given initial treatment and taken to a hospital and the fire was knocked down, firefighters searched the house and found a second person dead inside, Lillie said.

The division chief said there was no information immediately available on the two people or the origin and cause of the fire.

Christy Freeman said she, the victims and a few other people lived at the house but recently were told they were being evicted. She said the person who died in the fire was her housemate and best friend, Jovanna Gonder. The man taken to the hospital was Gonder's boyfriend, whom Freeman said she knew only by his nickname, Smoke.

Freeman said water and power to the home had been shut off in an effort to get the occupants to vacate the house more quickly. The housemates were burning candles for light.

Only the couple were in the house at the time of the fire.

Freeman said she and Gonder had been living in the home about six months. A man standing with Freeman, Lee Elton May, said he'd been there about a year.

Both said they'd been, and now again will be, homeless.

Lillie said the American Red Cross was on its way to the scene to provide assistance.

This story was originally published January 29, 2018 at 7:11 AM with the headline "One dead, one hospitalized in house fire near downtown Modesto."