TURLOCK, Calif. -- Armando Flores and his wife, Eva Centeno, were getting ready for bed when they heard a popping noise coming from the laundry room.
"I looked at the door and I could see the outline of flames," Flores said. "When I opened the door, my laundry room was fully involved."
And his three sleeping children were on the other side.
"To get to my kids' room, you have to go through the laundry room," Flores said. He ran through the flames, followed closely by his wife. They woke their children, and Flores tried one of the two windows in the room.
He couldn't get it open quickly.
"I went to the other window and got two of my kids out," he said. When he turned to get his son, the smoke overcame him, so he jumped out the window and went to break back in through the other window. But in the meantime, Centeno had managed to open the window and get out with 7-year-old Jacob.
The fire broke out at 12:49 a.m. Wednesday at the High Street home, the Turlock Fire Department reported. It took 14 firefighters only a few minutes to get the blaze under control, but about an hour to extinguish it, Fire Chief Tim Lohman said.
A short in the dryer apparently started the fire, Lohman said. Damage was estimated at $45,000.
"There was a smoke detector, but the battery was dead," Lohman said. "It was fortunate the door to the room where the children were sleeping was closed or there could have been some smoke inhalation problems."
Flores suffered burns to his face. His wife was burned on her shoulder, and Jacob got a burn on his arm.
They all declined medical treatment.
"It's nothing big," Flores said.
But the family, which includes Elijah, 4, and Mia, 6, lost many belongings, including electronics and clothes, in the fire. They had lived in the High Street home for about five years; Flores said he doesn't know where his family will go after the three days of lodging provided by the American Red Cross.
But he is grateful that he and his wife were awake and able to get the children out of the house before it burned or anyone got hurt badly.
"It was very scary," Flores said.
Copyright 2012 - The Modesto Bee
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
