Neighbors rally around family after woman lost in Fairview Avenue house fire
Neighbors of La Cañada’s Fairview Avenue are reaching out to assist a family after a devastating house fire that broke out last Thursday night claimed the life of one woman, a mother who’d reportedly been visiting from Korea.
Locals posted donations to the family on a GoFundMe page started by a small group of neighbors, eclipsing the page’s initial goal of $5,000 in just three hours. As of Monday, the page had been deactivated after having raised $9,383.
The homeowners, who have two school-age sons, lost everything in the house fire that also claimed the life of the mother of one of the adults in the household, the neighbors wrote on the page.
“The family is overcome with all the support and love this community has shown them,” they added.
Sgt. J. Larios, a watch commander for the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station, confirmed the call of a house fire came in at around 9:04 p.m. on March 8. Multiple units responded, including La Cañada’s stations No. 19 and 82.
Station 19 Capt. Richard Garcia said firefighters engaged in a rescue effort at the home.
“There was one patient — they carried her out,” Garcia said Friday. “The cause was not determined, so the sheriff’s arson squad is looking into it.”
Fire department officials said the blaze consumed roughly 10% of the house and took about 14 minutes to knock down. The woman was taken to USC Verdugo Hills Hospital as a “Code F” case, which usually connotes a fatality or someone in severe physical distress, fire inspector Joey Marron said Friday.
Maria Grycan, a community services liaison for L.A. County Fire Department’s Division III, confirmed in an interview Tuesday firefighters found the woman alone in the house, about 15 feet from the front door. She reportedly died the following morning.
Officials estimated the resulting structural loss from the fire was around $35,000, while the estimated content loss is being placed at $80,000, Grycan said.
The morning after the fire, a small crowd of neighbors gathered in the middle of the private road. One of them, a man who asked not to be named, said he didn’t know about the blaze until he heard fire crews’ chainsaws outside.
The neighbor said the fire was called in by a motorist, who’d been driving up nearby La Cañada Boulevard and saw what they first thought to be fog.
“They saw it was smoke, so they drove around to try and pinpoint it. Then they called it in,” the man said, adding that the Good Samaritan even attempted to douse the flames.
“They had a hose and were hosing it down,” he said, pointing at the garden hose of a nearby house.
The morning after the incident, the smell of smoke still in the air, the damage to the front of the house was visible from the street. A mixture of ash, books and papers spilled out from a front window, and stacks of scorched papers, books and clothing stood by a collection of trash bins.
In the driveway, a Korea Daily newspaper in a plastic bag still lay untouched.
Twitter: @SaraCardine
