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Gene Kennedy Reporting A family is homeless this afternoon and their neighbors have seen first-hand just how quickly the flames can spread.
Odds are, portions of this home, if not all of it, will have to be torn down and rebuilt. The flames that consumed it spread so quickly that neighbors who live blocks from here saw the orange glow outside their bedroom windows around 12:30 this morning.
Ayne Walters, neighbor: "Unreal, amazingly unreal, very scary. I mean just billowing. The sirens awakened me, and they just kept coming. My dogs were going crazy."
And as neighbor Ayne Walters watched the house go up, the family inside had seconds to escape.
Firefighters say it started on the patio then consumed the garage and portions of the home. Firefighters don't know how it started, but the mother, father and their kids made it out OK. Unfortunately, they lost two of their dogs and a cat. Upsetting news for relatives who stopped by this morning and for children who saw the damage on the way to school.
Ayne Walters: "It's a close-knit neighborhood; everybody knows everybody. You have something like this, and it's just major."
The house is considered a total loss, along with the car in the garage, but least the family is OK. The Red Cross found them shelter until they can get back on their feet.
