Several hundred people attended a memorial gathering Wednesday for a 25-year-old man from Coronado who was among three dozen people killed in a Dec. 2 fire in a converted warehouse in Oakland.
The private service for Nick Gomez-Hall took place at his alma mater, Coronado High School.
Gomez-Hall, who went on to attend Brown University in Rhode Island, was remembered as a talented musician and athlete, particularly as a sailor.
Most of those killed in the blaze were at a party on the second floor of the building known as the Oakland Ghost Ship, which was used by artists who lived and worked together in the face of the Bay Area's runaway housing prices.
The families of two other victims have filed a lawsuit against multiple defendants, including the building owners, contending that structural dangers that led to the fatalities were known.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the lead investigative agency, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is looking into a possible electrical cause to the conflagration, which was the deadliest structure fire in California in 110 years.
People familiar with the building described a tangle of extension cords powering living and work areas, propane tanks used to heat an improvised shower and exposed electrical wires covering a back staircase, the newspaper reported.
