Fire From Blast Destroys House : Simi Valley: No one is hurt in an early morning explosion that was heard all over the city but not by the dwelling’s occupants, who were roused by a neighbor.

The early morning explosion woke the entire neighborhood and sent many residents scurrying out of their homes to see what happened.

But Simi Valley resident Curtis McDowell, his wife, Carolyn, and a roommate, said they didn’t hear a thing.

“We didn’t know there was a big explosion,” Curtis McDowell said of the blast that blew the roof off his garage and the subsequent fire that destroyed his house Thursday morning.

The incident occurred about 6 a.m. in the garage of the McDowell house in the 1700 block of Wexford Circle, said Debra Davis, a spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

“We had a whole lot of phone calls,” Davis said. “People thought the whole block blew up. The whole world in Simi Valley heard it.”

Davis said it took 35 firefighters about an hour to extinguish the blaze. There were no reported injuries, but Davis said the house was destroyed. A restored 1955 Chevrolet pickup truck in the garage was also destroyed.

Peter Cronk, a Ventura County fire investigator, said the exact cause of the explosion has not been determined. However, he said that fire officials believe that fumes from some type of flammable liquid kept in the garage may have been ignited by the pilot light from a nearby water heater.

“I’m just glad everybody got out of there,” said Curtis McDowell, who still appeared shaken as he talked with fire officials several hours later.

McDowell, who works as a bottler at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Van Nuys, said he did not get home from work until 1 a.m. Thursday. Before he went to bed, he said, he took some pain medicine for a foot injury he suffered recently.

“I was out,” McDowell said. “I didn’t hear anything.”

He awoke to the sound of Lorie Towne, who rents a room from the McDowells, pounding on the couple’s bedroom door. He said Towne was screaming that a burglar was trying to climb in through a window.

McDowell said he reached for a gun that he keeps in the house and went to confront the intruder, then realized it was neighbor Ken Van Eaton trying to get them out.

Towne said she and Carolyn McDowell had gone to bed about 1:30 a.m. Thursday and they also did not hear the explosion.

“Nobody heard anything,” Towne said. “The neighbors said maybe the impact went over our heads.”

Katheryn Emry said she and her husband, Curtis, live a quarter of a mile away and heard the blast loud and clear.

“It sounded like the sonic boom when the space shuttle lands,” Emry said.

The McDowells’ next-door neighbor Pam Brewer said she thought there was an earthquake and that her house had caught fire.

When Towne and the McDowells finally got out, they said, they were shocked to see the entire house in flames.

“When we ran out and looked back, there was this big ball of fire in front,” Towne said. “If it wasn’t for Ken, we would have had a hell of a time getting out. We wouldn’t be here.”