Buddhist Family Escapes Injury as 3 Firebombs Damage Home

Three firebombs were hurled early Monday at a Northridge home where Buddhist services are held, igniting a fire that heavily damaged the house but injured no one, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported.

The 3:23 a.m. fire in the 8300 block of Yolanda Avenue burned the wood shingle roof and front windows of the house belonging to Pradit and Pachri Phongpharnich, authorities said. The couple and their two teen-age children escaped unharmed.

Arson investigators and the Phongpharnichs said they did not believe there was a link between the arson and their religious activities or the arrival in Los Angeles on Monday of the Dalai Lama, a spiritual leader of Buddhists, for an extended visit.

Pachri (Pat) Phongpharnich, who came with her husband to Southern California from Thailand 22 years ago, described herself as a Buddhist priest who uses the religious title “Rev. Man Hsi.” She said she holds weekly meditation meetings at the house and at other homes in the San Fernando Valley.

No Link Seen

“We are aware of her religious activities and the visit of the Dalai Lama, but the investigators don’t see a connection to the firebombing,” Fire Dept. Inspector Ed Reed said. Reed said arson investigators had interviewed neighbors but “at this point, we have absolutely no motive or suspects.”

Reed said it is believed that three homemade Molotov cocktails were thrown at the house in a neighborhood of nicely-kept homes off Roscoe Boulevard. The roof burned through and there was water damage from fire hoses throughout the house. A glass-encased shrine to Buddha in the back yard was undamaged.

Pachri Phongpharnich said the family was awakened early Monday by the sound of breaking glass. “I looked out the windows and could see the fire dripping down from the roof,” she said. “We got everybody out. We didn’t take anything with us.”

She said the firebombs hit the front windows, a hedge in front of another set of windows and the wood shingle roof. The flaming liquid rolled down the roof, spreading the fire, she said.

Pradit (Tom) Phongpharnich, who works as a mechanic at an auto dealership, was unable to extinguish the fire with a garden hose. Firefighters put out the blaze in about 20 minutes.

Phongpharnich said she held meditation meetings at the house with a small group of Buddhists each Thursday and elsewhere on other nights of the week, but did not believe her religious activities disturbed anyone or could have been a motive for the firebombing.

Neighbors Scared

A neighbor who asked not to be identified said the firebombing has frightened the quiet neighborhood, where the Phongpharnich family has lived for three years.

“It’s a terrible thing and it has scared us to death,” the neighbor said. “Our houses are very close. We are lucky the fire didn’t spread.”

The neighbor said members of the Phongpharnich family kept mostly to themselves. The services are not noisy, she said, but more than a year ago neighbors complained to Pachri Phongpharnich about the number of cars that often came to the house.

But after it was explained that “it was a religious reason,” she said, “we didn’t make too much of a fuss.”

Phongpharnich said that while she is one of thousands of Buddhists in Southern California anticipating the arrival of Tenzin Gyatso, the exiled Tibetan leader revered as the 14th incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, she had no plans to take part in any religious ceremonies involving the Dalai Lama.

“I don’t understand,” Pachri Phongpharnich said. “I have no fights with anyone. I meditate and chant for peace. I tell people not to be upset, to be happy.”