Firefighters said someone probably started a raging fire that burned an Ocean Beach home to the ground early Sunday while a young couple, with two small children, was spending the weekend at Disneyland.
The fire started in a plastic trashcan near 2032 Abbott St., said San Diego police Sgt. Ray Battrick. The flames jumped to the porch of the home, and very quickly the entire structure was swallowed up in the flames.
It went up so quickly,” said a neighbor who has lived in the house behind the young family for nine years. Shirley James said she heard something strange at about 4:30 a.m.
"I heard this crackling noise, which sounded very unusual. I ran up my stairs to look out my window and the house was engulfed in flames,” she said. The fire was approximately 10 feet from her house, maybe closer. “I came out here and ran up and down the street to make sure there was nobody in the house because I know what their car looks like,” James said. “I hosed down our home, our trees and the red house next to us just to make sure everyone was ok.
James said the husband works a lot and she wanted to make sure the rest of the family got out of the house.
“She’s a really nice woman and I was worried about her and her kids being alone,” she said. “I think it’s just very sad and wherever they are, I just pray that they’re safe.”
The house was destroyed. The charred remains littered the front yard and the sidewalk Sunday. The brother of the homeowner showed up at the home and couldn’t believe what had happened. He called his family and told them not to bring the young children home, calling it “too disturbing” for them. He promised them he would try to salvage what he could, but there wasn’t much left.
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James called the fact that someone may have deliberately set this fire “disgusting” and hopes someone saw something and reported it to the authorities.
“If somebody doesn’t have anything better to do with their lives… they have no reason to be on the streets. No reason to be anywhere as far as I’m concerned,” she said.
This kind of blatant disregard for people’s property is apparently not unusual in this neighborhood. James says they have been battling with graffiti for years and says this year has been particularly bad. She calls the vandalism “territorial.”
“The city has been working with us to get it out as soon as it shows up, but that isn’t always the case, so we do it ourselves, we spray paint things ourselves.”
An arson unit is investigating the cause of the fire. The damage is estimated at $350,000.
