Camarillo Complex Fire Displaces 22 Residents

David Strain stood outside his fire-gutted Camarillo apartment Tuesday, looking sadly at the blackened heap of rubble that contained the Christmas gifts he had bought for his three children.

Despite viewing his losses the day after he and his family were burned out of their home, Strain said he was feeling a bit like George Bailey, the hero of the Frank Capra holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“Your realize you have your family and everyone is OK,” said Strain, 28, a security guard at the Ventura Concert Theatre. “And then friends and family and people we don’t even know have stepped forward to help. It just wakes you up to the important things in life.”

Strain, his wife, Karen, and their young children were among the seven families displaced when a fire ripped through their apartment complex in the 2400 block of Pickwick Drive Monday night. The flames destroyed Strain’s apartment, where the blaze started, and caused smoke and water damage to six other units in the building, said manager Myrna Halvorson.

One resident, Rudy Hinojosa, was treated for smoke inhalation at Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo Monday night and released Tuesday, hospital officials said. Nobody else was hurt in the blaze, fire officials said.

On Tuesday, the owner of the 66-unit complex was working with Red Cross officials to provide shelter for the 22 people, including 10 children, temporarily left without homes.

All the residents were offered rooms at the Days Inn in Camarillo, paid for by Ventura Investment Co., the property’s manager, Halvorson said. The families were told by Halvorson that they could stay at the inn for as long as it took to get them back into their apartments or other living arrangements, she said.

Many of the residents stayed at Days Inn Monday night but checked out Tuesday to stay with relatives or friends, said a desk clerk at the motel. Strain was staying at the motel Tuesday, but his wife and children were staying with his sister in Oxnard, he said.

He spent the day picking through a pile of rubble at the apartment complex, trying to salvage what he could of the family’s belongings. It wasn’t much.

“We had our Christmas shopping almost done and that’s gone now,” he said. “Everything is pretty much toast.”

Strain’s unit was the most heavily damaged in the fire. The blaze started when a load of laundry left too close to a wall heater burst into flames, fire investigators said. Damage to the building was estimated at $50,000, with $25,000 in personal property lost, officials said.

Red Cross officials met with Strain Tuesday to help his family arrange for new housing and to buy new furnishings, clothes and other belongings. The Strains and others displaced for more than a few days will probably be offered another apartment in the complex, Halvorson said.

Members of Strain’s church, the Camarillo Church of Christ, also rallied to help, organizing donations of food, clothing and money for his family, Strain said. And people who read about the family’s misfortune in newspapers were calling all day Tuesday to find out how they could assist, Halvorson said.

Strain said his 7-year-old son, Donovan, spotted the fire when he came home with his father from an outing about 6:30 p.m. Thirty firefighters were called to fight the blaze, which was contained about two hours later, a fire spokeswoman said.

The apartment below Strain’s suffered heavy water damage, and two adjacent units were declared uninhabitable due to smoke damage, officials said. But Halvorson and Red Cross officials said the residents would not be homeless for Christmas.

“Not if we can help it,” she said.