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::: COMMUNITY NEWS
Family escapes early morning house fire Published Saturday, November 11, 2006 A family of three escaped unharmed when fire erupted in a home at 6660 Ventana Drive at dawn Friday. The home suffered $850,000 in damage in the two-alarm blaze, which started in the attic. The cause of the fire is undetermined, but investigators suspect heating system equipment in the attic, according to Christian Pebbles, spokesman for Sacramento Metro Fire. The fire was already through the roof when firefighters arrived at 6:28 a.m., seven minutes after receiving the call, Pebbles said, and almost three dozen firefighters were involved in the firefighting effort. The house, built into a hillside, is one of four on a cul-de-sac.
The family -- Nick Melnik and his wife, Galina, and son, Kevin, 4 1/2 -- moved into the home in April after two years of construction. Nick Melnik discovered the fire after he was awakened by a noise and went to his son's room to check on him. There was no smoke and it was the light fixture on the ceiling of the sleeping child's room that alerted Melnik to the inferno building in the attic above. He saw the light bulb glowing red, he told firefighters later. "I took my family out and took some documents and that's it. I called 911 first," he recalled. The smoke detector sounded as the family was leaving the house. "It's very common for fires to burn (undetected) for a long time while people are still inside the house," said Pebbles. "He woke up and his whole attic was on fire. Fortunately, he was able to get his wife and son out." Firefighters were limited in what they could do to save the structure because the fire was well underway in the attic of the large, custom home when they arrived, Pebbles said. The heavy tile roof was collapsing, and it was too dangerous for firefighters to go inside. "We'll risk our life to save a life, but we won't risk our life to save property," he said. Pebbles said house fires in Rancho Murieta are "very challenging" because of the community's remote location. In more populated areas, the fire department can quickly marshal the manpower and equipment of fire stations located within blocks of each other, but in Friday's fire support for Rancho Murieta Station 59 came from miles away. The home is built into a steep slope studded with oak trees that backs up to Camino Del Sol. Firefighters carrying hoses and equipment trudged through fallen oak leaves, climbing the slope to attack the fire at the rear of the home while other crews hit it from the front and sides. A firefighter in an aerial apparatus brought in from Rancho Cordova trained two solid streams of water on burning areas of the roof from high above. Neighbor Neil Watson watched the effort from the deck of his home on Camino Del Sol overlooking the Melniks' backyard. When he first glanced outside around 6 a.m., "I thought it was foggy out," he said. Within minutes it became apparent this was no early morning fog as sheets of flame burst from his neighbor's roof and the first fire trucks came into view.
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