A man and two children were hospitalized after a fire spread through a second story residential area above the Brookdale Post Office in the early hours of Friday the 13th.
Jon Bowles, 52, said he was in his downstairs unit when he heard a rumbling around midnight coming from the upper level.
“I heard some commotion upstairs,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure how the fire started.”
Boulder Creek Fire Protection District Chief Mark Bingham said while no foul play is suspected at this time, the cause is still under investigation.
When firefighters arrived at the quaint structure across Highway 9 from the Brookdale Lodge, they found flames bursting from multiple sides.
“We made some really quick tactical decisions,” Bingham said, explaining because they knew there were still people inside, they chose to use what’s known as the Vent Enter Search procedure. “We did have a partial roof collapse.”
Fire officials said there were two dogs in the upstairs unit, one of which one died in the fire.
Seven people normally live in the residential portions of the building.
Around 4:45am, Bowles was hauling items out the unit where he and his wife live—which he said was now soaked with water.
“We’ve been in touch with the Red Cross,” he said. “Now we just have to find a hotel.”
He took a break from collecting his possessions to wrangle one of his neighbor’s dogs.
Bowles had already accounted for his family’s two cats and a dog.
“We got them out,” he said.
The victims were taken to Valley Medical Center. One required assistance with the transport.
Eric Hatschek, 70, and Clio Buchanan, 59, were on their way to Boulder Creek around 2:15am when they were forced to wait for hours due to the road closure.
Hatschek said he’d been planning to make baklava at a bakery in the middle of the night.
“—and I probably still will,” he said.
Buchanan said she saw plenty of smoke and noticed the glowing mist, which was illuminated by the emergency vehicles.
“It was actually beautiful,” she said of the colors.
The California Highway Patrol began reopening Highway 9 around 4:40am.
Neighbor Peter Hinds, 73, said it appeared the ground floor wasn’t all that damaged.
Chief Bingham confirmed the overall structure remained largely intact.
“We were very aggressive,” he said. “We kept fire from entering the first floor.”
That being said, he added it was too soon to say for sure whether they’d been able to save the post office or not.
*Story updated at 12:49pm Dec. 13 to state that one dog died.
