A block over, a house caught on fire. I quickly grabbed my camera (Nikon D70) and took a few of these:
http://www.vermillionstudios.com/temp/fire.jpgFortunately, no fatalities..
SAN DIEGO – Thick, acrid smoke poured from a San Carlos home tightly packed with belongings, as firefighters worked nearly two hours Monday afternoon to douse a stubborn fire.
A man who hosed down a neighbor's roof was briefly overcome by smoke and was given oxygen by paramedics. No one else was injured.
The blaze broke out, possibly in the kitchen, about 5 p.m. at a one-story home on Casselberry Way north of Wandermere Drive, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Maurice Luque said.
Luque said the cause of the blaze is unknown. Damage was estimated at $450,000.
“The house was filled with items; every entrance to the house was blocked,” Luque said. “The fire crews couldn't get in.”
Firefighters cut a ventilation hole in the roof before it started collapsing. Luque said a metal roof had been installed over a shake shingle roof. The roof smoldered for about 90 minutes before firefighters could drench it with a firetruck's elevated ladder pipe, which sent 500 gallons of water a minute streaming into the roof hole. The fire was mostly out shortly before 7 p.m.
The owners, two brothers, were not home at the time, but one of them returned as a neighbor across the street, Keith Atkisson, was dialing 911.
“I was sitting in my garage door, reading a book, with the door open. All of a sudden, I smelled smoke,” Atkisson said. “Smoke was coming out near the garage and the back of the house right across the street.”
He said he called out in case anyone was inside, then one of the owners arrived. They shut off the natural gas line and found the front door too hot to open.
Atkisson said the back patio and house eaves were engulfed in flames as he trained a next-door neighbor's garden hose on the blaze. He then climbed on her roof to keep the flames from jumping to her house.
“When I came down I kind of collapsed in my driveway. I was light-headed. Some medics gave me oxygen,” Atkisson said.
He said the owners of the burned home had recently cleared the yard of various odds and ends. When firefighters got the garage door open, the garage appeared packed with broken and discarded furniture, clothes, a computer keyboard, drink bottles, old ice chests, plastic containers
