MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – A house fire that killed four people here early Sunday came as no surprise to Estelle Pawlowski.

On the hunt for a rental property, she had walked through the yellow-sided house about a month ago after seeing it hit the market at about $40,000.

“I hate to say it, but it looked like a firetrap,” Pawlowski said Sunday. “They made rooms out of boxes. … It was cluttered all over the place. It was just really, really weird.”

Investigators said Sunday that the two-story house was divided into 12 to 15 sleeping areas. Why conditions inside the home were so cluttered, officials speculated that it was a boardinghouse for Asian employees of a popular Chinese restaurant in Michigan City.

“We do suspect that there were a great number of people in the house,” said Indiana State Fire Marshal Roger Johnson.

Records showed that the home’s owner, Zhi Jian Jiang, also owns the Fortune House restaurant, less than three miles from the destroyed home. Johnson said investigators had spoken with Jiang, but he declined to elaborate on the conversation.

Authorities said they hadn’t identified the four people who died. Johnson said they might be able to check fingerprints against those on passports if some were recovered.

Michigan City Fire Chief Ralph Martin said there were reports that numerous people fled the house at the time of fire, and police were trying to identify and talk to them.

“We don’t know why they left, why they didn’t stay and answer our questions,” Johnson said.

The fire, which started about 3:30 a.m., probably began in the rear of the house, Johnson said. But investigators said they were uncertain about the cause of the fire, which spread rapidly and was extinguished at 6:30 a.m. It was unclear if there were smoke detectors in the house.

Ian Neulieb, 20, who lives about one block north of the house, was having a cigarette outside and chatting with neighbor Nicole Taylor, 19, when he saw the orange glow of the fire.

Neulieb, son of a Michigan City firefighter, and Taylor said they ran to the house and ushered six people out and across the street.

“As soon as I got one of them out, they’d go back in and get more stuff,” Neulieb said, adding that all of them were Asian and none spoke English.

One man stranded on the first-story roof leaped off and landed on the sidewalk, Taylor and Neulieb said. Like several others, he fled. Taylor said two others – a man and a woman – drove off in a car, moments after a police officer arrived.

Diane Pannell, who lives next to the house, said Neulieb awoke her by pounding on her door. When she ran to the back alley, she saw what she thought was the start of the fire burning on a shed about 3 feet behind the house.

The house had been occupied by a large number of Asians for more than a decade, neighbors said.

Ann Costello, like others in the modest, trim neighborhood of older homes, said residents of the house rarely socialized with others. “You never saw them unless they were mowing the grass or trying to get a better signal on their cell phone,” she said. “If you waved to say hi, they’d wave and say hi.”

Others said the house was an eyesore

Fire investigators brought a dog trained in detecting accelerants to walk through the house. “Do we suspect foul play at this point? No,” Johnson said. “Are we ruling it out? Absolutely not.”

Authorities were planning a news conference for 11 a.m. Monday.

Attempts to reach Jiang on Sunday were unsuccessful. At his restaurant a sign taped to the door read, “We are close today – Sorry!”

“It’s sad,” Costello said, watching crews sift through the charred interior of the house. “It’s a terrible, terrible loss. It makes my stomach turn.”

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AP-NY-08-13-06 1944EDT