Crime & Safety

Fire Destroys Family's Home

The family will stay with a relative as they put their lives back together and search for their cat.

A family lost its home – and its cat – in a fire today.

Flames were reported at 6:02 p.m. on the 31000 block of Corte Tortosa. Twenty-three firefighters, two officers, five engines and a truck were there six minutes later and, though the blaze was contained at 6:17 p.m., it caused about $100,000 worth of damage, said Riverside County Fire Department Captain Casey Hartman.

The cause was the malfunction of a battery charger for a radio-controlled car, the captain said.

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It was plugged into a wall outlet in the garage for fewer than 25 minutes when the fire broke out, said Nate Rayes, the home’s owner.

He plugged a battery into the charger just before leaving for his father’s house in Crown Hill, he said. “I got there, sat down, ate three tacos and got a phone call,” he said.

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The scent of smoke lingered in the cul-de-sac as firefighters doused the rubble. The garage was roofless and gutted;, many of the Rayes’ tools – he’s a former carpenter – were piled among debris on the lawn. “There’s my air compressor, that cylinder thing,” he said, pointing to a blackened metal tank.

He lived with his wife and child in the house. They planned to stay with relatives, Rayes said, but they were worried about their cat, which was inside the house when the fire started. “The only way out was the garage,” Rayes said.

The fire devoured the garage door first, said Ryan Augustine, a neighbor who lives two houses away. “There was no more garage door and flames were just spewing out,” he said.

Fortunately, firefighters saved about $250,000 worth of the home and belongings, Hartman said. “The vast majority of the contents of the living quarters was saved.”


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