Hollister
– A fire engulfed a two-story home on Vista Park Hill Tuesday
morning, collapsing the second story of the house and causing
$600,000 in estimated damage.
Hollister – A fire engulfed a two-story home on Vista Park Hill Tuesday morning, collapsing the second story of the house and causing $600,000 in estimated damage.
Hollister Fire Chief Bill Garringer said the blaze originated in the second story and took 22 firefighters from both the City of Hollister and San Benito County approximately 50 minutes to contain. Firefighters used three engines and one ladder truck to relay water hundreds of feet from a hydrant on San Benito Street up Hill Street. The fire was completely under control within two hours, he said. The house was unoccupied at the time of the fire, but one firefighter was hospitalized after fighting the blaze.
The cause of the fire is being investigated and may not be known for several days, but the house is not salvageable, Garringer said.
Smoke from the fire could be seen throughout the city Tuesday morning. Flames were visible at the top of the pepper tree that stood on the east side of the house. Rounds of ammunition could be heard discharging from San Benito Street. The smell of gunpowder permeated Vista Park Hill.
Garringer said there was ammunition stored in the home, but it is not known how many rounds. He said rounds explode, but do not project in fires.
The owner and sole resident of the home, whom the Free Lance has identified as Richard Puccinelli, arrived shortly after the blaze began. He had been on vacation and was not in the home at the time of the fire, said Craig Johnson, a Monterey-San Benito Counties American Red Cross chapter volunteer.
“I don’t know what to answer,” Puccinelli told the Free Lance while staring at the flames. “I lost my house.”
Puccinelli declined to comment further on Tuesday.
Laura Kershner, public support director of Monterey-San Benito Counties American Red Cross, said the chapter dispatched a disaster action team, consisting of Johnson and Robert Tomkin, both of Hollister, and Matt Jacobs of Gilroy. Kershner said the Red Cross will not be providing assistance.
“The gentleman in the 300 block of Hill Street has refused to accept our assistance,” Kershner said.
Kershner said the home is insured and the owner is staying with a girlfriend in Morgan Hill.
Former owner Julie Trebler stood at the bottom of the drive to the first home she ever owned Tuesday evening and reminisced.
“This place here was probably the biggest change and turning point in my life,” Trebler said. “I was just a single parent trying to buy a home.”
Trebler said the house had originally been a barn dating to the 1800s. She bought the home seven years ago. Stephen Alexander, who had lived in the house from 1998 to 2000, helped build the 20-by-55-foot deck on the eastern side of the house.
Alexander spoke fondly of the house.
“There’s a lot of character in that house,” he said.
San Benito County Sheriff’s Det. Bryan Penney and Sgt. Tom Keylon were the first public safety officials on scene.
“Tom and I just happened to be driving by and we saw the smoke. We called it in and evacuated these people,” said Penney as he pointed to a neighbor’s home.
Garringer commended the efforts of the firefighters.
Hollister Fire Capt. Tim Schneider suffered minor burns to his ears. He was treated at Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital but was released shortly thereafter, Garringer said.
The department is understaffed but able to battle fires of this magnitude, Garringer said.
“We did a pretty good job,” Garringer said. “If there’d been a second fire during this event it would have been a disaster.”
Michael Van Cassell covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or mv*********@fr***********.com.
