Roofing company helps put out house fire

9-year-old girl was among the first to report blaze in Westlake Village

By Julia Rogers
Correspondent

Members of a Burbank roofing company helped to fight a Westlake Village house fire Monday afternoon, using garden hoses and their own tools to battle flames until firefighters arrived.

The crew from Total Roofing Co. was working on a home on Southwind Circle on the island at Westlake Lake when they saw smoke from a house two doors down. The eight-man crew ran to the house, grabbed water hoses and climbed on the roof to beat back the flames, said crew chief Jose Luis Lopez.

"The fire was coming out of the windows and we could see flames in the house from the yard," Lopez said. "Everybody on the crew helped and the neighbors let us use their hoses to soak the roof. There was so much smoke and it was so black."

The roofers returned to their job when firefighters arrived.

The 2 p.m. fire caused $65,000 worth of damages and was started by an electrical short in the upstairs bathroom said Sandi Wells. Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman.

"It was accidental, but at least we kept damages low," Wells said. "This is almost a million dollar house, so really it didn't sustain a lot of damage in the long run."

Several neighbors thanked the roofing crew Tuesday for its actions, Lopez said.

"We're just glad we could be of help," he said. "It could have been a lot worse. We're all roofers, so we knew what to do and when we saw how big the flames were, we knew we had to help. We didn't think about it. We saw something that needed to be one and we did it."

Among the first to report the fire was Gina Canavan, 9, of Westlake Village. The fourth-grader was accompanying her mother on her business route for You Dirty Dog Professional Mobile Groomer when she glanced out of their van’s window and saw smoke billowing fro the home of the two dogs they were grooming.

"I got out of the van to see which house it was," she said. "That's when I yelled for my mom and she called 911."