Bio

Humberto Díaz de la Torre came from El Salitre, in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico. He was one of a number of people who left that town and went to Los Angeles, California.

In Los Angeles he had family ties in the city. An uncle of his lived at the Dorothy Mae Apartment-Hotel on Sunset Boulevard.

The Dorothy Mae building was a 43-unit brick building that housed nearly 200 people. Many of the people who lived there were immigrants from El Salitre and came from a small number of families.

Murder Story

On September 4, 1982, a fire at the Dorothy Mae Apartment-Hotel in Los Angeles killed 25 people and injured 30. The building stood at 821 Sunset Boulevard and had 43 units. It had been opened to tenants in 1927 and housed nearly 200 people.

In 1985, Humberto Diaz de la Torre was convicted of starting that fire. He was sentenced to 625 years in prison. The fire was set with gasoline and a match after an argument with his uncle, who lived in the building.

The perpetrator and most of the victims were immigrants from El Salitre, Zacatecas, Mexico. The vast majority of the victims were from four families.

The Dorothy Mae fire led to a 1984 law called the Dorothy Mae ordinance. The ordinance requires certain pre-1943 residential buildings of R-1 occupancy that are three or more stories high to meet retroactive fire safety requirements.

Other large Los Angeles residential fires include the Stratford Apartments fire on November 15, 1973, which also killed 25 people, and the 1970 Ponet Square Hotel and Apartments fire, which killed 19 people and led to the "Ponet doors ordinance."