Santa Ana : Residents Battle Fire Until Firefighters Come

Fire broke out in the kitchen of a two-story apartment Sunday after the tenant stepped out briefly to go to the market, authorities said.

The tenant, a single man who was not identified, discovered the fire when he returned home about 1:35 p.m. He joined a neighbor to fight the blaze with fire extinguishers until firefighters arrived, Santa Ana Fire Department Battalion Chief William Zastrow said.

The one-bedroom apartment is in a four-plex in the Aspens apartments, a fashionable 642-unit complex in the 1600 block of West MacArthur Boulevard, authorities said.

The fire has been classified as accidental, but investigators will have to determine the cause, Zastrow said.

The tenant was gone for no more than 30 minutes, and when he returned, he saw the fire in the kitchen above the stove, Zastrow said. The stove appeared to be turned off, and the tenant said he had not been cooking before he left the house.

The fire caused an estimated $30,000 damage to the structure and $10,000 to contents, he said.

Stanley A. Johnson, 28, who lives in an adjacent building, was one of the first to notice the fire, after smelling smoke he initially believed was from a backyard barbecue.

“I was going to leave my apartment and I wanted to check to make sure the smoke was nothing (to worry about). I went around a corner, saw more smoke billowing out from the bottom floor of an apartment and I ran and grabbed an extinguisher,” Johnson said.

By the time Johnson returned, flames prevented him from going inside.

“I just stood outside near the doorway and used the extinguisher.”

Together, Johnson and the tenant exhausted four fire extinguishers while fighting thick smoke and flames until firefighters arrived, Johnson said.