GILROY
– It was about 4 o’clock this morning when Alfonso Ortiz, 27,
noticed the fire in the backyard – and that it was coming into his
house.
GILROY – It was about 4 o’clock this morning when Alfonso Ortiz, 27, noticed the fire in the backyard – and that it was coming into his house.
His first thought, he said later, was for the safety of the seven extended family members he lives with. He immediately woke them, and they all made it outside without being hurt.
The fire took place at 157 Old Gilroy St., just west of Alexander Street, in a rental unit behind an unmarked meeting hall. Gilroy firefighters hadn’t determined the cause of the blaze as of press time but confirmed it started outside behind the house – apparently against the back wall.
There was no visible damage to the building’s cinderblock walls, but part of the wooden roof was heavily burned – over a bedroom, according to firefighters. The house also received heavy smoke damage since there is no cross-ventilation inside, firefighters added.
Juan Carlos Barrios, 38, Ortiz’s uncle, said some of the family’s belongings were lost in the fire but these were unimportant to him, considering that his family escaped alive and unharmed.
Ortiz said he thought the fire began in a neighboring backyard, adjacent to the house and backyard his family rented.
In the family’s backyard, a section of the wooden fence between the two yards, close to the building, was burned through. Two children’s play structures stood this morning amid grass that was completely torched.
Living in the house were Ortiz, Barrios, Barrios’ wife, their 11-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, Barrios’ 29-year-old sister-in-law, his 29-year-old niece and his 14-year-old nephew.
They had no insurance for their belongings, although their landlord had insurance on the building. Red Cross Disaster Relief is providing the family with temporary lodging, food and other emergency services.
Crews from both Gilroy fire stations, Chestnut and Las Animas, knocked down the fire in about five minutes and then cut through the bedroom roof to extinguish the fire under the eaves.
