Garage Fire Turns Into a Spectacle

Frances Senior was baking a lemon meringue pie at noon Tuesday, when she smelled something burning.

It wasn’t the pie.

The detached garage next to her home on El Jardin Avenue had caught fire, and with it her 1975 Datsun. What’s more, the flames were advancing on the house where she had lived for the past 40 years.

So after calling 911, Senior did the only thing she could think of:

“I turned my garden hose on it,” said Senior, 85. “But the water coming out was hot.

“After awhile it just got too hot to bear.”

Eventually, a police officer arrived and carried the 5-foot-2 Senior, still wearing her apron, over a chain-link fence and helped her down to the street. She suffered a minor burn to her chest and was treated at the scene.

By the time firefighters brought the blaze under control, Senior’s Datsun had been destroyed and a neighbor’s home had suffered fire damage. Authorities said the fire, which may have resulted from an electrical short in the garage, caused an estimated $17,000 in damage to the two properties.

A head of black smoke could be seen from across Ventura, and spectators lined the streets of midtown to watch.

Students at Ventura High School ran to the baseball diamonds to catch a glimpse of the fire on the street above, but were turned back by school officials.

Police officers blocked North Catalina Street at Main and Poli streets, in case the fire spread to nearby homes.

City firefighters arrived shortly after noon and found the garage fully involved, said Battalion Chief Bill Rigg. The damage was not isolated to the garage.

“She had picture windows all along the front of the house, and every one of them cracked because of the heat,” Rigg said.

The brick-and-wood structure continued to burn, and all Senior could do was watch.

“I’m worried about my car,” she said as the flames roared. “I have an eye appointment tomorrow, and I won’t have any transportation.”

At about the time Senior smelled smoke, her next door neighbor, G. S. Sierra, 82, was in the kitchen of her house and heard a crackling sound outside. She too called 911 and then went out to investigate.

Flames were burning her bougainvillea vines, and then she saw Senior’s garage going up in flames.

“I saw Frances trying to put out the fire,” said Sierra, who lives alone. “I was just hysterical. I was so worried for Frances.”

The two women ended up side by side in plastic patio chairs in the street, watching city firefighters battle the blaze. Sierra’s daughter, Laura Winkler, arrived and found the two women in their chairs, between two fire engines.

“And I just thought, thank God,” Winkler said.

Twenty-four firefighters knocked down the blaze by 12:20 p.m.

But next door at Gary Wolf’s place, the attic was now smoldering, and smoke was pouring from the attic vents.

“I was on The Avenue when I heard on the scanner that Frances’ house was on fire,” said Wolf, 50, a longshoreman.

He rushed home, went inside and found the house where he has lived since 1972 filled with thick black smoke.

“It was so thick I couldn’t even see five feet in front of me,” Wolf said.

The interior of the house features tongue and groove pine, and Wolf was concerned it would go up in flames. “It’s real nice, been seasoned over 20 years,” he said.

Firefighters had to cut through his roof to extinguish the blaze, Rigg said.

Damage to Wolf’s house was estimated at $2,000, with another $15,000 in damage to Senior’s property.

Sitting in her chair in the midday sun, her garage smoldering and her car a heap of burned metal, Senior suddenly realized she had forgotten to turn off the oven.

“I’ve got a pie in the oven with meringue browning,” she said with a chuckle. “I don’t know what it’s going to look like now.”