Family’s Misfortunes Mount

Poor Scott Miller just can’t catch a break.

During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the then-Los Angeles city firefighter was shot in the face while rushing from one blaze to another.

Two years later, misfortune struck Miller once again when the Northridge earthquake wrecked his Granada Hills home.

And early Friday morning, Miller found himself using a garden hose outside his current four-bedroom house in Newbury Park, watching hopelessly as a fire destroyed many of his family’s belongings.

“I guess this is a really big deal because of what has happened to me in the past, huh?” Miller asked as a phalanx of television crews descended on his tranquil neighborhood. “But we’re going to do what any family would do if they were in our situation: We’re going to move on.

“I’ve learned that’s all you can really do.”

Thanks in large part to the quick thinking of neighbors who alerted the family, Miller and his wife and two children were not harmed.

The Ventura County Fire Department by late Friday still had not determined the cause of the blaze, which apparently began in the family’s garage about 12:30 a.m., according to witnesses. Fire officials said the home sustained $85,000 in damage.

“I just came running outside, I looked and it was roaring and popping in the garage,” said neighbor and actor Casey Sander of television’s “Grace Under Fire,” who later took the Millers into his home for the rest of the night. “I just went running into the front door and smashed the window.”

Unbeknown to Sander at the time, Miller and his family had already escaped the fire and were in their backyard.

“They’re terrific people,” Sander said, his right forearm slightly injured from his heroics. “I don’t think anything of it, really. I know they would have done the same for me.”

Bad luck and tragedy seemingly have followed the 37-year-old Miller for years. During the riots, he was piloting a hook-and-ladder through the flames of Western Avenue when a gunman pulled up beside the fire truck and fired, hitting him in the right cheek and severing his carotid artery.

Miller was the most severely injured of all the city employees who combated the riots. Doctors warned him that he might never talk or walk again, and he received an outpouring of support from people throughout the nation.

The gunman, Thurman Ivory Woods, pleaded no contest to the charges and received a 16-year jail sentence. Miller said at the time that although he could never forgive his attacker, he would not let the incident make him bitter. The First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles honored Miller as an example of tolerance.

The fire captain fought back from his injuries, eventually regaining the ability to talk and to move freely. But his left hand will never be the same, he said, and his voice is forever slightly scratchy and muted. He now works as an inspector of high-rise buildings for the Los Angeles Fire Prevention Bureau downtown.

When the Northridge earthquake shook his home--cracking its foundation--in January 1994, Miller said he thought little about his own cruel fate, considering that “some of my neighbors’ houses completely fell down.” He took his insurance settlement and moved to a quiet Newbury Park neighborhood shortly afterward.

Miller said he opened the refrigerator Thursday night to grab a drink, then went to bed. Two hours later, he was awakened by the screams of his neighbors, who had spotted a fast-moving fire in his garage and rushed into the street to help.

Rachel Kahn, Sander’s live-in nanny, was the first to notice something was wrong. She awoke after midnight to a loud rattle and got up to peer outside, believing someone was vandalizing a car.

She called 911 and woke Sander, who ran across the street and attempted to alert the Millers by breaking their front window. By that time, the family had heard the cries of neighbors and had escaped with their dog, Topper.

Late Friday morning, as the mass of onlookers, camera crews and insurance adjusters began to clear, Miller and his wife, Kathi, began trying to salvage what they could from their charred home. Their children, 9-year-old Ryan and 7-year-old Julianne, went to school.

“I’m just glad they’re safe,” Kathi Miller said. “That’s probably the best place for them right now.”