Family Devastated by Christmas Eve Blaze

The family of Hans Rudolph and Susen McKenzie isn’t expecting much today.

At 8 a.m. Christmas Eve, they were jolted awake by the whine of their smoke alarm. Rudolph went into the living room and found the front wall engulfed in flames from floor to ceiling--the start of a blaze that left the couple and their three children homeless on Christmas Eve and destroyed virtually all their belongings, including the only pictures of a child who died in infancy.

Rudolph ran back to the bedroom of the Mojave Desert home, pulled his three daughters away from the Godzilla video they had opened before Christmas, and shepherded them into the chill morning.

Six-year-old Rebecca, the oldest, ran across the snow-flecked yard in her bare feet.

Rudolph tried to fight the fire with water, but as on most mornings this week, the pipes were frozen.

By the time he retrieved his fire extinguisher from the garage, the flames were so hot and the air so filled with smoke that it was hopeless, he said. He threw the extinguisher at the burning wall and ran for open air.

McKenzie, dressed only in her underwear, stumbled out to the dirt road running through the 42000 block of 7th Street East in the semirural neighborhood, screaming for help. The driver of a truck parked in the repair yard behind the burning house called 911. As seven Los Angeles County fire trucks pulled up, flames stabbed through the roof.

“I believe we’ll just have to take the loss,” said Rudolph, a 36-year-old tractor-trailer repairman. They had no rental insurance, he said. “The firemen told us we need to throw everything away because the house had asbestos.”

Hazardous insulation or not, little was left.

What the fire didn’t consume, the high pressure fire hoses pounded to mush. Fragments of furniture lay scattered in the burned-out rooms. Burned clothes were strewn about the floor like rags. The Christmas tree was a charred stick.

Most precious of their lost belongings were their only pictures of Hans Jr., who died in infancy two years ago.

Said Rudolph: “All we’ve got is the clothes we were wearing when we got out of the house.”

That, and a blackened teddy bear filled with Hans Jr.’s ashes. McKenzie clung to it much of Thursday.

The family’s next-door neighbors, the Monroes, aren’t expecting much of a Christmas either.

Aaron Monroe, a stage technician, hasn’t had steady work since October.

He was chopping wood for money on Christmas Eve. But with five children under the age of 10 and no other income, there has been no money for telephone service, garbage collection or cable TV, much less Christmas presents.

Still, when the house next door burned down, leaving five people homeless Thursday morning, the Monroes didn’t hesitate.

“The last time we spoke to them, we were in a fight,” Kimberly Monroe said of the luckless neighbors. “Today, we didn’t talk about it. I’m just trying to be a good neighbor.”

When McKenzie tried to run back into her burning house, Monroe held her fast. When 6-month-old Charisty Rudolph began wailing for food, Monroe mixed formula with warm water. She invited McKenzie’s children to play and watch Barney videos with her own children. She dug through her drawers and closets until she had bags of clothes for the Rudolph children. She even gave Rebecca shoes.

“They’re not pretty,” she told her neighbor’s daughter. “But you can wear them.”

Other friends gave the burned-out family department store gift certificates worth $50. The Antelope Valley Chapter of the Red Cross has offered additional clothing, food, housing and even toys.

And Rudolph’s father will put his motor home in the backyard, so the family will have a place to spend Christmas, and guard against thieves.

County Fire Department investigators were trying to determine the cause of the blaze. Inspector Mark Whaling, a department spokesman, said an electrical wiring problem was suspected.

Rudolph has his truck repair business at the rear of the house and, despite the fire, he was optimistic about the new year.

“Things will all work out some way or another--things happen for a reason,” Rudolph said. McKenzie interrupted him. “I don’t know any good reason this would happen,” she said.