Well-placed bucket of water extinguishes Ukiah house fire

A Ukiah woman accomplished a “one in a million shot” Saturday by dousing a raging fire with a single bucket of water, a Ukiah Valley Fire District official said.

The woman, a tenant in an apartment complex in the 100 block of Laws Avenue, was warming a wok on her stove when she stepped out for a few minutes around noon, Capt. John Strangio said. She returned to hear the fire alarm sounding, finding the kitchen on fire and the apartment filling with smoke, he said.

Knowing her daughter, 24, and 8-year-old granddaughter were upstairs, the woman threw a bucket of water on the blaze, which destroyed the stove and a light fixture across the room.

The daughter, meanwhile, heard the smoke detector go off and found smoke filling the hallway, Strangio said. She and her daughter were about to jump from a ?second-story window when she heard her mother say it was safe to exit down the stairs.

A maintenance man rushed to the fire station a half-block away to report the fire at 12:04 p.m.