A woman who was carried out of a burning Grass Valley apartment building Sunday was thankful for her rescue Monday.

Ida Beckett, 83, and another elderly neighbor in the building, Marilyn Duffy, were taken to Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital for smoke inhalation and observation and were recovering.



Meanwhile, a 45-year-old woman was still being treated for severe inhalation injuries and burns Monday after being pulled from the building.

She was one of 13 residents who had to evacuate the the 11-unit apartment complex on the 300 block of Mill Street, Fire Chief Tony Clarabut said.

The woman, whose name has still not been confirmed, may have been injured by the explosion of several oxygen tanks in her apartment, Grass Valley police Capt. Rex Marks said. She was transported by helicopter to Sutter Roseville Medical Center.

Beckett said she thought she heard a car-theft siren going off in the street, when someone pounded on her door about 8 a.m and told her to get out.

"I opened the door and the smoke was bad in the hall," Beckett said. Using her walker, Beckett made it to another door leading outside, but saw embers and was afraid she couldn't get down the back stairs.

She then went back to the front door and opened it again, only to see thicker smoke in the building's common hallway.

"I started yelling 'Help me!'" Beckett said. "I heard someone coming down the hall and they went right by me.

"She heard me, and came back and she carried me out to a couple doors down and laid in in the grass," Beckett said. "She was a paramedic and I think her name was Amy."

Beckett said she probably lost everything in the fire but would get help from her family. "I'll be OK," she said.

Beverly Parr of the western Nevada County chapter of the Red Cross said the residents of the building were "All elderly, disabled, low income people who lost everything. One gal even had money in her freezer," that went up in flames.

Nine of the residents are being housed at the Holiday Lodge motel on East Main Street. Arrangments are being made for a drop center for donations for the victims, but details will not not available until later in the day, Parr said.

Come back to The Union.com later in the day for more information.

Trinia Collins and fiance Nicholas Young got out with only the clothes on their backs. Mid-morning, they waited down the street and hoped they would be able to retrieve the most important of their possessions.

“We were sleeping and heard ‘boom, boom, boom' on the door, then heard someone saying ‘Get out, get out, get out,'” Collins said.

She escaped in her robe and Young ran out wrapped in a comforter.

“Thank God someone found me some clothes; they've all been wonderful,” she said, starting to sob. “All my money, my cell phone, my purse, they're all in the house. I'm worried about my kids' pictures.”

Young was frustrated after firefighters only let him grab Collins' purse, some medications and a few odds and ends.

“This is not good,” he said. “It's little stuff (that we've lost), but it all adds up ... We had just gone shopping.”

The cause of the blaze was under investigation, Clarabut said, adding he could not comment on reports a burning cigarette was the cause.

“We searched to make sure it was all clear,” Clarabut said. “But because the building was unstable on the back side, we had to pull out the firefighters for safety reasons.”

Complicating the firefighting effort was the loss of the ladder truck, which has been out of service for six weeks. A ladder truck was brought in from Placer County; responding crews included Nevada City, Nevada County Consolidated, Ophir Hill and Calfire fire agencies.

By 4:20 p.m., Grass Valley Fire Department had pulled all but two engines from the fire, sending five engines to North Auburn to battle the wildfire there.

“We're still trying to complete the mop-up,” Clarabut said of the downtown blaze. “It's so structurally unstable, I'm not able to put firefighters inside to remove debris ... We're struggling.”

To contact Staff Writer Liz Kellar, e-mail lkellar@theunion.com or call 477-4229.

Evacuations ordered

Evacuations have been ordered on the following roads: Yuba-Nevada, entire length; Texas Hill, east of Dixon Hill Road; Cook Lane; Colton Way; Candlewood; De Long; Dixon Hill; Meadow Valley; Sky Meadow Way; Beacon Lane; Ranger Trail; Stewart Road; Rices Texas Hill Road; and Rices Crossing on the southern end. Officials also issued a voluntary evacuation order as a precaution for all residents who live on Regent Way or access their homes from that road. Regent Road runs southwest off Rices Crossing Road, according to Yuba County spokesman Russ Brown. The evacuation center formerly at the Dobbins-Oregon House Community Center has been moved to Loma Rica Community Church, 11234 Loma Rica Road, Loma Rica, to take refugees further from firefighting activity, Calfire reported. Animals can be evacuated to the Yuba County Sheriff's Posse Arena on Marysville Road in Browns Valley, just north of Highway 20. To contact Senior Staff Writer Dave Moller, e-mail dmoller@theunion.com or call 477-4237.

SANTA MARIA — Two wildfires on opposite ends of the state prompted evacuations as a blaze in Shasta County closed in on a handful of homes and another in Santa Barbara County approached 14 ranches Tuesday afternoon.

Firefighters said they were nearing containment on fires in Shasta, Lassen and Tuolumne counties. Smoke from those fires fouled the air in Nevada County Tuesday and could do so again today.

About 50 miles east of Redding, firefighters evacuated 10 homes and one business in the town of Burney.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman James Stewart said fire crews are cutting more fire lines today to protect houses there.

The blaze has consumed almost 27 square miles since it was sparked by an Aug. 2 lightning storm. It was 67 percent contained Tuesday afternoon

Officials say 15 firefighters were injured.

About 111 square miles of the Los Padres National Forest, mostly inaccessible backcountry, were closed, Forest Service spokesman Maeton Freel said.

Ranchers moved their horses and other livestock as the flames crested a ridge a few miles away, Freel said.

The 3-day-old wildfire in the San Rafael Wilderness area of the forest scorched almost 33 square miles of brushy canyon lands that haven't burned since 1922.

Freel said 1,277 firefighters and water-scooping aircraft battled the blaze, which is 10 percent contained. One firefighter suffered a hernia.