House Catches Fire Near Santa Rosa Fire, Police Departments

SANTA ROSA, CA — Santa Rosa firefighters were checking for hot spots and investigating the cause of a two-alarm house fire that broke out Wednesday morning, leaving two residents displaced. The fire at 903 Sonoma Ave. — four doors down from Santa Rosa Fire Station No. 1 — started around 4:05 a.m., SRFD Battalion Chief Ken Sebastiani said in a news release.

The first firefighters on scene discovered an established fire burning underneath a large portion of the 1,200-square-foot wooden house, which is elevated about 4 feet off the ground and composed of four separate living units, Sebastiani said.

A total of 30 fire personnel were dispatched to the hard-to-access blaze.

Some firefighters were assigned to the roof to create ventilation openings to relieve heat and smoke and to cut off the spread of the blaze, Sebastiani said.

Other crews created openings into the underneath of the home and to the walls where the fire was traveling.

"With an aggressive fire attack, crews extinguished the fire," Sebastiani said.

The fire was contained within an hour.

Damage and loss was estimated to be around $200,000, with the main fire damage being underneath the home and to the back room of one of the units, with smoke damage throughout, the battalion chief said.

Red Cross responded to assist the affected residents.

Firefighters began clearing the scene around 6 a.m. and all lanes of Sonoma Avenue reopened around 7 a.m.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation at the time of Sebastiani's news release.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

Lead photo via Shutterstock