Santa Ana firefighters rescue elderly woman from flames | fire, home, firefighters, house, caswell - News - OCRegister.com
The woman had collapsed from the heat of a nearby mobile-home fire.
By DOUG IRVING
The Orange County Register
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SANTA ANA – Firefighters rescued an elderly woman who had collapsed in the heat and smoke of a nearby mobile-home fire on Sunday morning – the start of a busy 26 hours for Santa Ana fire crews.
Hours later, a devotional candle burning in an apartment bedroom touched off a fire that displaced 16 people. And hours after that, another fire caused by a candle swept through a house and sent one man to the hospital with burns.
Fire investigators do not believe the three fires were related, Capt. Chris Caswell said.
The first call came shortly before 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. Firefighters arrived at the Continental mobile-home park in the 200 block of Monaco Drive to find one home already filled with smoke and fire.
One of the firefighters saw that an elderly woman – apparently trying to escape the smoke and heat – had collapsed in the doorway of the mobile home next door. Fire crews knew the woman from previous medical calls, and knew that she used a wheelchair or walker.
The firefighter pulled the woman from the building and put her in a truck. She was taken to the hospital to be checked out; Caswell did not know what her condition was or whether she had been released.
Another firefighter was also treated for heat exhaustion, Caswell said.
That fire caused $200,000 in damage to the mobile home and also burned a 1999 Ford Expedition parked in a nearby car port. Fire investigators believe it started when an electrical plug failed.
The next call took fire crews to a two-story home in the 1400 block of West Civic Center that had been converted to apartments. They found an upstairs bedroom burning when they arrived around 7 p.m. Sunday.
Firefighters knocked down that fire in about eight minutes, Caswell said. But the Red Cross had to find another place for the 16 people who lived in the house to spend the night.
Investigators believe a devotional candle caught a mattress on fire, starting the blaze that caused an estimated $100,000 damage to the house and $50,000 damage to its contents.
The third call came in a few minutes before 4:30 a.m. on Monday, also the apparent result of a candle. Firefighters arrived at a single-story house in the 2300 block of West Anahurst Street to find dark, heavy smoke pouring from a bedroom window.
A man who was sleeping in that bedroom told firefighters he awoke to find that a candle he had left burning near his computer had caught the room on fire. He threw a blanket over the flames, then escaped with five other adults who were in the house.
The man was hospitalized with first- and second-degree burns, Caswell said. He did not know the man's condition.
That fire caused $200,000 in damage to the house and $50,000 damage to its contents, and displaced the six people who were living there.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com
