Families in Lamont are picking up the pieces after a fire at a pallet warehouse spread to a nearby mobile home park, destroying three homes and damaging two others.
The blaze erupted Saturday night at Kimber Pallets & Firewood warehouse on DiGiorgio Road, where stacks of pallets and cardboard bales quickly became engulfed in flames.
"When fire finds a flammable source, it can spread quickly," Jon Drucker, engineer and PIO for Kern County Fire Department, said.
I visited the site Monday morning and found mostly rubble where homes once stood. Burned furniture was scattered throughout the area, with one ceiling collapsed to the ground.
Epiphania Bautista has lived in her mobile home for 25 years before losing everything in the fire.
"I don't even know what to say. The first thing I did was look to see what made it out of the fire and what didn't. I came to check and there's just debris, all of our clothes are burnt, everything burned," Bautista said.
Bautista told me she and her husband were sleeping when neighbors banged on their door to alert them about the approaching fire.
"The flame was approaching was coming our way, and the smoke was entering our home already," Bautista said.
Francisca Carranza Nuñez had a similar experience, waking to see flames outside her window.
"I got up and fell. My knees buckled," Nuñez said.
Frightened by the sight, Nuñez prioritized waking her son and grandson to evacuate their home.
Both families are currently staying with relatives but say they'll need community support to rebuild their lives.
"It'd be great to replace my home with the help of the community and my father, God, with all his strength," Nuñez said.
23ABC reached out to Kimber Pallets and Firewood for comment but has not received a response. The Kern County Fire Department says the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The incident has brought the Lamont community together, with many residents creating GoFundMe pages to help those affected.
GoFundMe
Epiphania Bautista
Fransisca Carranza Nuñez
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