Man runs into burning apartment complex to pull woman to safety

Posted: Jul 14, 2012 7:24 PM by Hope Hanselman, KSBY News
Updated: Jul 15, 2012 12:23 AM

Several residents in Atascadero are without homes this evening after a two-alarm fire broke out at the Bordeaux Apartment Complex. That's in the 9300 block of Bocina Lane.

When fire crews arrived on scene they say four units were completely engulfed in flames. Neighbors say the fire spread fast, and could have been deadly. But, Atascadero Fire Department says, with the help of some brave neighbors, there were no serious injuries.

The neighborhood watched as fire crews fought to keep flames under control.

"I mean you could feel the heat from a good hundred feet away," Branden Brumble, a resident, said.

But as he went from door to door shouting "fire" and residents ran out of the building, one man ran in.

"I looked outside and I see the smoke over the hill there over the buildings," Dave Guerena, resident, said.

Guerena heard a man calling to his mother, who was still inside a flaming apartment. But the worst was yet to come.

"I immediately ran down here and as I'm running I heard the explosion."

A woman living just five feet away from the center of the fire says she saw the danger multiply.

"Then the trees just blew up into flames and it just spread from one apartment all the way across," Porsche Hill, resident, said.

Meanwhile, Guerena could only get about a foot into the house.

"I see the lady coming closer and she's kind of bewildered, you know. I'm yelling at her, 'come on, come on,'" he said.

He had just a fire extinguisher to clear a path; but he arrived just in time.

"You could hear something going 'sssss' ."

That's when the third explosion hit, shooting flames past his head.

Hill says the that explosion shook the house like an earthquake. But, at that point, all residents were safe outdoors, thanks to the help of some quick-thinking neighbors.

"You know in a fire situation, you don't have much time," Guerena said.

The cause of the fire is unknown, but residents say the explosions sounded like a propane tank from a barbecue catching fire.