‘The flames were just insane’: Neighbor describes deadly Nipomo fire

Nipomo resident David Gomez woke around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday to the sound of an explosion.

“I heard an explosion, yelling, screaming — I thought there was a car accident in our front yard, here,” Gomez recalled. “I came out and I didn’t see nothing, but I could still hear screaming. So I happened to look towards the top (of the house), and I could see a glow.”

Gomez lives next door to the two-story house where a residential fire claimed the lives of one person and two dogs and injured two others early Tuesday morning.

A 17-year-old girl died in the blaze, according to Cal Fire and the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office. Two other people escaped through a window, Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Adan Orozco said.

The two injured people were transported to the hospital, according to a tweet from Cal Fire.

Gomez said the house, located near the intersection of Tefft Street and Calico Court, was already engulfed in flames when he emerged from his home.

He said he then ran back inside, threw on some clothes and jumped over into the neighbor’s yard to try to help.

“I just grabbed a water hose and I started watering down the house, but it was really — I mean the flames were just insane,” Gomez said. “That whole house went down in about 20 minutes, I think. It just went through that house pretty quick.”

At one point, he even broke a window to help firefighters get into the building in hopes of saving it, he said.

In the light of day, however, it was clear the home was mostly unsalvageable.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the building was a scorched shell of what it previously had been. Burnt pieces of the roof haphazardly jutted into the sky, and black marks spread from windows where mangled screens dangled, attached only by the thinnest scraps of rubber and metal.

Through those windows, the inside of the home appeared almost entirely black, with all but the attached garage appearing to have been irrevocably damaged.

“The house had significant damage to the inside,” Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Adan Orozco said. “Every room had fire in it and smoke damage. There is partial structural collapse of the second floor.”

Neighbors and firefighters did not recall hearing smoke detectors go off, Orozco said.

Gomez said he feels bad for the family that lived in the scorched home, which is now dealing with unspeakable tragedy.

“They are really good people,” he said. “Really nice people. It’s just sad, especially right next door to us. I would never have thought a house next door to us could be on fire and then, just the tragedy. Our family wishes them our condolences.”