The day after a three-alarm fire destroyed a two-story,
five-bedroom house on the outskirts of Gilroy, a family of three
has realized just how much they lost.
The day after a three-alarm fire destroyed a two-story, five-bedroom house on the outskirts of Gilroy, a family of three has realized just how much they lost.
Burned clothes, furniture and appliances pale in comparison to the death of the family pet. Lynn Henson was devastated when her Maltese poodle Mercedes didn’t emerge from the burning home, her son Anthony Baham said. Henson had owned the dog for about seven years, he said.
The fire started about 2 p.m. Wednesday when Henson was heating up the ingredients for tacos, left over from the previous night’s dinner. Baham, 36, was upstairs folding laundry and watching an old black and white film, getting ready to pick up his 13-year-old son, Seth, from Ascencion Solorsano Middle School. His mother went upstairs to see if Baham wanted any tacos, and in the few short minutes it took her to climb the stairs and chat with her son, the pan of grease and taco ingredients flared up, Baham said. When Henson smelled smoke, she ran downstairs to check on the tacos and screamed to Baham that a fire had started, he said.
“I just thought I was going to have to pour a cup of water on the pan,” he said.
But by the time he made it to the kitchen, the entire stove, cabinets and floor had been engulfed in flames. Mother and son immediately evacuated, leaving behind precious photographs of Baham’s brother, who died recently, and the family dog. They were unable to take any possessions with them, Baham said, but no one was hurt. He tried to put out the fire with a garden hose, but quickly abandoned the futile effort after it proved worthless.
A passerby called the fire department. Within about 10 minutes, the entire house was up in flames.
“The house was drier than a popcorn fart,” Baham said. “It went up in about four minutes.”
The family had just finished unpacking their belongings after moving into the home about a month ago, Baham said. A tile setter, he and his son just moved to Gilroy from Washington to join Henson – who has lived in the area for the last 10 years – in the home they rented on Holsclaw Road just north of Gilman Road in east Gilroy. Baham did not know who the owner of the house was but a neighbor said the home was built in the early 1900s in the middle of what used to be a prune orchard. The house belongs to Frances and Warren Lindeleaf, according to the county assessor’s office and neighbors.
“It was an awesome house,” Baham said. “It had an old feel and it was out of town. My room was my sanctuary.”
Unfortunately, many older homes were built without firebreaks in the walls, explained South County Fire Battalion Chief Derek Witmer. Nine engines from the Gilroy Fire Department, Santa Clara County Fire Department and Cal Fire responded to the blaze. After declaring the house a total loss, their main focus was that the fire didn’t spread to various outbuildings on the property, Witmer said.
“The house is a complete loss,” Witmer said about the same time the roof fell in on the blackened remains. Just minutes before, flames twice as tall as the house billowed out the windows and holes in the roof, spewing thick black smoke into the otherwise clear, but garlic-scented, air.
“With older homes, the fire spreads so fast once it gets into the walls,” Witmer said. “The flames just crawled right up through the walls.”
Henson, Baham and his son are staying with Henson’s sister and brother-in-law, Denelle and Tim Collins. The family is hoping members of the community will donate clothing to help them get by since they escaped the house with only the clothes they were wearing.
“If anyone has old clothes they don’t want, they can drop it off at my aunt’s house” at 331 El Cerrito Way, Baham said. He was mostly worried about his son, he said.
“We are pretty fortunate to have family around here,” he said, “but everything’s gone. No socks, no underwear, nothing.”
