Santa Rosa firefighters contain house fire (w/video)

Fire tore through a 100-year-old home in Santa Rosa’s Junior College neighborhood Friday afternoon, causing significant damage to the structure and displacing two families, including former City Council candidate Mike Cook.

Several residents in the city’s Junior College neighborhood spotted flames pouring out a side window of the home and used garden hoses to battle the blaze before firefighters arrived.

“If it weren’t for them, that house would be gone,” said Nicole Mouton, a stylist at a salon around the corner from the Orchard Street home.

Ted Rabinowitsh, 67, was in his garage when he heard a crackling sound like someone wheeling a recycling bin over rocks, he said. But then the retired property manager heard glass breaking, looked out and saw the flames shooting out a bay window.

He grabbed a garden hose and started spraying water into the window while two other neighbors also trained hoses on the fire.

Dennis Wilson, a retired carpenter, said the trio had pretty well gotten the fire contained by the time firefighters arrived. He said he was frustrated that after firefighters took control of the scene they seemed “lackadaisical” as flames shot out the roof.

That’s far from true, Battalion Chief Mike Jones said.

Firefighters’ first priority was to make sure the two-story home was cleared of people, he said.

They attacked the fire on the first floor while also venting the fire by cutting a hole in the roof, he said. They noticed smoke coming out of the vent and were preparing to attack the fire on the second story when flames briefly kicked up again, he said.

Old houses don’t have fire breaks in the walls and it is very easy for fire to travel up through walls between stories, he said.

“They might have stopped the flames from coming out of the window as much,” Jones said of the neighbors, “but they didn’t contain it.”

Former City Council candidate Mike Cook has lived with his wife and two young children in the wood-shingled, Craftsman-style duplex since June, he said. The landscape architect, who arrived on the scene as firefighters were mopping up, said the fire appeared to have started in the living room, an area with a couch and an old floor heater that worked but that they never used because of its age.

He said he didn’t know if the heater could have played a role in the fire.

“I’m assuming all our living-room furniture, electronics and kids’ stuff are gone,” he said.

There were no reports of anyone being injured.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @srcitybeat.