Suspected Arson Guts Home, Injures Girl, 13 : Fire: Black teen-ager, badly burned in Oak View blaze, had been target of racial taunts. Nine other family members are displaced.

A 13-year-old black girl who withdrew from an Ojai Valley school because of racial taunts was seriously burned Tuesday in a suspected arson that gutted her family’s house and displaced nine other family members.

Shuwana Stanford, sleeping on a couch in the living room of the family’s three-bedroom Oak View home, suffered first- and second-degree burns after the fire broke out about 4 a.m., authorities said.

“I heard a big pop, then I felt heat on my head and I woke up,” Shuwana said from her Ojai Community Hospital bed. “I was waking up in a stop, drop and roll.”

She was listed in fair and stable condition with two silver-dollar-sized burns on her forehead and lesser burns on her head and body. She was expected to be released from the hospital Tuesday evening, a nursing supervisor said.

Two other family members were treated for smoke inhalation and released.

Fire investigators said they have not yet determined the cause of the fire.

“Right now it’s still under investigation,” said Norman Plott, spokesman for the county Fire Department. “We’re taking this house apart piece by piece to determine the cause.”

But family members said a hole in their living room window, the pop they heard before the fire erupted and the fire’s initial single stream of flame all make them suspect that a firebomb may have been thrown into their residence.

Family members, who had moved from Ventura to the predominantly white Ojai Valley just 10 months ago because they saw it as a safer community, said they were awakened by the breaking window and Shuwana’s piercing scream.

“I woke up and I saw a stream of fire,” said Charles Stanford, 29, the burned girl’s uncle. “Then I saw a hole in the glass where it looked like someone had thrown something through it.

“My niece ran past me, and she was holding her face,” he said.

Winnie Stanford, the girl’s grandmother, said she saw fire burning in a stream as if following a gasoline trail, then, “I heard her yell, ‘Grandma, come help me. My face is on fire.’ ”

Although the cause of the fire remains uncertain, the top NAACP official in Ventura County called for an FBI investigation of the incident, and an Ojai city official expressed sadness and regret.

“My personal feeling is that people in Ventura County, African Americans, need to stop and take a look at what is happening not only in Ojai, but all over,” said John R. Hatcher III, president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “I keep saying Ventura County is a very racist place. We tend to sit back and say it didn’t happen to us.”

Ojai City Councilwoman Nina V. Shelley said she has heard about white supremacist activity in the Oak View area.

“It is incredibly disturbing,” Shelley said of Tuesday’s fire. “Most of us feel that it couldn’t happen here.”

Shelley said she intended to visit the burned girl. “What will I say to her? ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

Six months ago, Shuwana allegedly was insulted and threatened by a group of white girls who scrawled epithets across her locker and carved a swastika just yards away, according to James Berube, principal at Matilija Junior High School.

The girls were counseled, but no disciplinary action was taken because of lack of proof and conflicting accounts of the incident, Berube has said. He declined comment Tuesday.

But Shuwana was so afraid she refused to return to campus, enrolling instead in a home-schooling program, said Lonnie Stanford, the girl’s grandfather.

Even though the fire follows the ugly racial incident, family members said they did not yet want to conclude that they are victims of a firebombing.

But if arson is proved, “it means that there is hate,” said Lonnie Stanford, a 30-year Navy veteran who now works for the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.

“I know of no one we have provoked,” he said. “We have simply tried to be ourselves.”

Shuwana said she has no idea whether the fire was racially motivated. But she said she has not received any nasty notes or been racially harassed since she left school in January.

The Stanford family, including three members who were just visiting at the time the home was destroyed, was relocated to an Ojai motel by the American Red Cross, which solicited donations.

By midday Tuesday, several large bags full of clothing and toiletries had been donated.

The fire prompted a groundswell of support from neighbors, who said they were shocked that the family may have been targeted.

“I’m real angry this was done to them,” said Melody Archibald, who lives across Grande Vista Street from the Stanfords.

Another neighbor, Michael Gularte, 13, said: “They’ve been a quiet, loving, peaceful family. They’ve never bothered anybody. It just kind of blows my mind that anybody could do that to someone.”

The boy said he was shaken by a pre-dawn scene where 56-year-old Winnie Stanford struggled against her relatives’ grasp to re-enter the burning house to try to salvage a lifetime of mementos.

“It made me cry,” he said.

Lonnie Stanford said he hopes to move back into his leased home as soon as it can be repaired. His landlord has written the family a check to help them get back on their feet, the grandfather said.

And despite the suspected arson, Stanford said he still wants to live in the Ojai Valley.

“You get a feeling of security, and a laid-back atmosphere here,” he said. “We can always start over again.”

Daryl Kelley is a Times staff writer and Tracy Wilson is a correspondent. Correspondent Jeff McDonald also contributed to this story.

FYI

Persons wishing to help the fire victims may send monetary contributions to the Fire Victims Relief Fund, Ojai Valley Bank, 1207 Maricopa Highway, Ojai 93023. Clothing for the family may be dropped off at any fire station in Ojai, Meiners Oaks or Oak View.