Camarillo Condo Damaged in Fire

A single mother and her two children were burned out of their rented condominium in Camarillo on Wednesday after a lit candle on a shelf fell onto a bed and ignited it, a fire department dispatcher said.

No injuries were reported and no other units were damaged in the two-story complex on Lido Court, said Rhonda Roller, a dispatcher at the Ventura County Fire Department.

The mother, Christine Moore, sprayed the blaze with water from a garden hose until firefighters responded with three engines at 4:12 p.m. It took 23 minutes to extinguish the flames, Roller said.

The fire caused about $75,000 in damage to the structure and contents, Roller said. Moore, who said she was not insured for the losses, took her teen-age son and daughter to stay at a nearby motel.

“I’m just trying to make sense at this point and figure out what I’m going to do,” Moore said from her motel room.

She and daughter Krista, 14, and son Jason, 17, left their home with enough belongings to last overnight, Moore said. They planned to return today to see what could be salvaged, but Moore was not optimistic.

“Everything looks like it’s pretty well smoke-damaged, and I mean everything,” Moore said. “I looked in the drawers, everywhere.”

In addition to many of their possessions, the family lost a cat and hamster in the blaze, Moore said. The Ventura County Chapter of the American Red Cross was notified.