Alert Neighbor Helps Contain House Fire

An alert neighbor may have kept a house fire in Somis from growing into an inferno Sunday morning, fire officials said.

The fire started shortly after 11 a.m. in the kitchen of a custom home in the 3700 block of Groves Place.

“Thanks to a neighbor’s awareness, we got a report before the fire consumed the whole house,” said Capt. Lee Hill of the Ventura County Fire Department.

The neighbor, alerted by a buzzing smoke alarm and the sound of a glass door shattering from the intense heat, called Ventura County firefighters about 11:15 a.m.

Three engines, a rescue crew and a battalion chief arrived within minutes, but firefighters ran into problems with a locked security gate and a pet Rottweiler, which was running loose in the yard.

A second crew of firefighters was dispatched to the scene at around 11:25, and the blaze was contained 15 minutes later. No one was injured.

Fire Department investigators determined that the fire was caused by a hot pan containing grease that had been thrown into a kitchen trash can Sunday morning.

The fire charred one-third of the $400,000 home, causing about $85,000 in structural damage, Fire Department officials said. Smoke and flames caused about $70,000 damage to the home’s contents.