A Fresno family will spend Easter away from home after a fire ripped through their home Thursday morning.
The flames ignited at the house on San Bruno near First and Shaw in Northeast Fresno. Firefighters say an 11-year-old girl staying at her grandma's house saw and smelt smoke coming from the garage and quickly woke up her family. They couldn't save the home but thankfully no one was seriously hurt or even killed.
Firefighters responded to the fire around 1:30 a.m. Thursday morning. When they got there neighbors were already using garden hoses to help put out the fire. A son of the grandma received treatment here for smoke inhalation and was take to the hospital as a precaution.
No one was hurt and 11-year-old Amber Stewart told Action News what happened after she first noticed smoke inside the home. "I was coughing. So then I went to and got my brother up. Because I didn't know what to do -- duck, go to my grandma get out of the house. So I went and we went into the bathroom, splashed my eyes out. Then we went to my grandma."
"I never realized -- I mean you don't know how you feel until you don't have a home. I don't even have a car. My car, my honey baked ham in the garage that was in the refrigerator in the garage is gone," said Amber's grandmother Geri Hansen.
That ham was supposed to be cooked for Easter Sunday. That's no longer going to happen with the house a total loss.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The Red Cross is helping the family Thursday morning with living arraignments.
Firefighters say this home did not have a working smoke detector, so naturally this serves as a reminder to have one working inside the home and change those batteries every six months.
