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No one injured in
By Leila Fujimori
Moanalua fire
Star-BulletinTragedy may have been averted yesterday by a passerby who noticed smoke in the front of a two-story Moanalua Valley house and alerted the occupants.
"He was the one that saved our lives," homeowner Teresita Agaran said of the passerby.
As one of the occupants and his 3-year-old son napped, fire damaged the front of their home. The passerby alerted the homeowner, who lives in the upstairs unit of the two-story house.
Fire Capt. John Drake said there was $25,000 damage to the structure and $10,000 to contents. He said a possible cause of the fire was a child playing with a lighter.
Agaran got her young niece and nephew out from the upstairs unit, then ran outside looking for the source of the smoke.
She found flames and smoke spewing from the downstairs living room window, and ran to the back to warn the occupants. Inside, her 3-year-old nephew heard her cries. "He woke me up crying," said Gary Wilson, the boy's father, who rents the unit.
Firefighters got the fire under control nine minutes after the first alarm at 12:05 p.m. The fire was confined to the downstairs living room.
The passerby knocked on neighbors' doors, warning them as well. Before firefighters arrived, neighbors battled the flame with fire extinguishers and garden hoses.
No one was injured, but the three children were "traumatized by the whole thing," said Fire Battalion Chief Kenneth Word, who comforted them with teddy bears.
