Family of four burned out of their Santa Rosa apartment

A two-alarm blaze gutted a two-story apartment in south Santa Rosa on Monday afternoon, leaving a woman and her three children without a home, killing their dog and consuming everything they owned, friends and fire officials said.

The family was away when the fire erupted at their home in a five-plex building at the Grays Meadow Apartments off Kawana Springs Road, near Target and the Santa Rosa Marketplace. But several different neighbors quickly became aware of the 2:25 p.m. blaze and called 911, authorities said.

A next-door neighbor, Adolfo Villagomez, said he heard smoke alarms sounding through the walls in the moments before his young son reported the foul smell of smoke from the backyard. When Villagomez went outside, he saw smoke billowing from next door and, soon, flames.

“It went fast,” he said. “Way, way fast.”

The victims - the woman, her 14-year-old son and two daughters, aged 10 and 12 - arrived home during the firefighting effort and huddled around a car in the parking area, where friends tried to comfort them. Scores of onlookers watched as well, though authorities kept them behind yellow tape strung around the of the fire zone.

The distraught mother, whose name was not immediately available, was eventually taken into an ambulance by paramedics so she could be evaluated, officials said, so extreme was her distress.

The housing complex consists of multiple buildings in close proximity to one another, each with five narrow, two-story apartments.

The burned unit was second in its row and did not catch its neighboring units on fire.

Santa Rosa Fire Battalion Chief Ken Sebastiani said he could see a huge plume of smoke while en route and, given initial, ultimately inaccurate reports of fire-related injuries and the density of the apartment complex, decided to call a second alarm, drawing additional firefighting help.

Rincon Valley fire personnel thus responded to the scene behind Santa Rosa Fire crews, who “did an amazing job getting in and getting the fire out,” Sebastiani said.

There was some smoke damage to adjoining units, but they were largely untouched, despite sharing walls with the victims' home.

The unit was blackened throughout and had its windows blown out, though the inside stairs appeared to remain intact.

Electrical wiring in one unit was compromised, however, rendering that apartment uninhabitable for the time being, Sebastiani said.

On the other side of the burned unit, only a small portion of the trim over Villagomez's entryway appeared to have been charred. Some sealant or framing from the windows on a unit across the narrow walkway between apartment buildings appeared to have melted off, as well.

Sebastiani said the cause of the fire was not yet known, but was under investigation.

He said the Red Cross was providing emergency housing and other assistance to both dislocated families.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.