Teenagers Warn Family of House Fire

Four Nordhoff High School students helped save a man and his four children when their house caught fire in Oak View, county fire officials said Saturday.

The teens, who were driving past the house on Valley Ridge Street just before midnight Friday, saw flames coming from the chimney, Fire Department Capt. Chris Mahon said.

The teenagers knocked on the door and awakened homeowner Sam Shirck. Shirck evacuated his children, who are all under the age of 8, and then called 911.

“They saved these people by letting them know,” Mahon said.

Although the fire was confined to the chimney and attic, $100,000 in damage was done to the structure. Firefighters arrived in time to cover personal belongings with tarps, keeping the content loss to $3,000.

Because the blaze was in the upper reaches of the house, smoke had not moved into the living room, which would have caused the home’s fire detector to sound, Mahon said.

“When we saw it, we knew it was too much smoke to be a regular fire. Something just told all of us to go,” 17-year-old Alexis Teitelbaum said.

Teitelbaum and her friends, Michael Cary and Jennifer Wanders, both 17, and 16-year-old Krystal Kahlar, were on their way to Kahlar’s house at the time.