Boys Help Grandparents Escape From House Fire in Camarillo

Two Camarillo boys probably saved the lives of their elderly grandparents Wednesday by helping them scale a 6-foot-high block wall to escape a fire consuming their home, authorities said.

Matthew Beaver, 11, and Terrance Beaver, 14, rushed into action shortly after 11 a.m. when a fire started inside a backyard shed in the 1500 block of Dara Street.

The boys’ 94-year-old grandfather was sharpening household knives and scissors at a grinding wheel in the building, said Sandi Wells, spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department. Wells did not know the grandparents’ names.

While Terrance ran inside to help their 74-year-old grandmother, who was taking a shower in an upstairs bathroom of the two-story house, Matthew called 911.

The blaze traveled from the shed, across the top of an attached porch and to the second floor of the house through the windows, Wells said. According to the boys, the front door of the house was blocked by flames, she said.

The four could not escape from the backyard through the gate because the fire was raging too close. Instead, the boys pushed their grandparents over the wall surrounding the house and into the arms of waiting neighbors, Wells said. They also got the grandfather’s wheelchair over the wall.

“It isn’t something we see every day, it is very special,” Wells said of the rescue. “To have two young men thinking that clearly, with that much pressure from a life-and-death situation, it’s extraordinary.”

By the time firefighters arrived four minutes after receiving the emergency call, Matthew, Terrance and their grandparents were out of harm’s way, Wells said.

The boys’ parents, Lorna and Ben Beaver, rushed home from work when they learned about the fire, Wells said.

The fire was quickly extinguished after causing $155,000 damage to the structure and its contents. Although the cause of the fire was not determined, investigators said it originated in the shed, where the grandfather was working at the grinding wheel.