Family in Santa Clarita Loses 2nd Home to Fire : Disasters: An arsonist leaves a mail carrier, his wife and children homeless for the second time in four months.

The first fire destroyed their belongings. The second one virtually wiped out the only thing they had left--their hope.

For the second time in about four months, Raul Martinez and Lorraine Favela and their four children have been left homeless by fire. On Tuesday, a blaze set by an arsonist burned part of the house they had been renting in Canyon Country since a larger fire devastated their original house a few blocks away Oct. 22.

“Why us? What did we do to deserve all this?” said a discouraged Martinez, 37, a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. “We don’t know where to start, where to begin or even what to do. This is really discouraging.”

What is even more unsettling, Favela and her husband say, is that the second fire was deliberately set by a burglar who broke into the house Tuesday morning while family members were away at work or school.

“We’re afraid this could happen again--what if someone is home next time they start a fire?” Martinez said. But, he added, “Santa Clarita is our home. . . . We really don’t want to leave.”

Tuesday’s fire, in the 27800 block of Rosamond Drive, started in the den and was clearly the work of an arsonist, said Gary Stuart, arson investigator for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The blaze, which caused an estimated $10,000 in damage, was largely confined to one room, Stuart said. But the intense smoke permeated the furniture and clothing, which had recently been donated by local charities, leaving most of the family’s belongings unusable, Martinez said.

The fire was discovered by the couple’s eldest daughter, Monica, 17, who saw smoke billowing from the house as she walked home from Canyon High School to have lunch. She ran to a neighbor’s house and called the Fire Department. Then she called her parents. The fire was already out when Martinez and Favela arrived.

“When we opened the door of our house, there was this stench of the smoke--again,” Martinez said. “It brought back all of these bad memories. We were walking around the house like zombies--we were all just stunned. It was too much. Things we had for only a few months were all destroyed.”

The October fire, sparked by faulty electrical wiring, gutted the house they rented less than a mile away in the 19000 block of Lone Rock Street, Stuart said.

The family dog survived both fires, but other pets weren’t so lucky. Three birds and a nest of eggs were destroyed in the October fire. Two cockatoos that the family was given after the first blaze perished in the second.

The family is staying in a local motel with the help of the Red Cross in Santa Clarita, which is also coordinating assistance for them.

The family is also afraid to move back into the same home, because they fear the arsonist might come back, Martinez said. All six family members had trouble sleeping for two nights afterward, he added.

Both Martinez and Favela have been forced to take off work in order to put their lives back together. They’re not sure what they will do now.

“We don’t have any money for first, last and deposit, so we’re in a real bind,” Martinez said. “We’ve been living from paycheck to paycheck since October and then this fire happens again.

“We’re in a lot of trouble.”