House Destroyed by Fire in Downtown Sonora

A 2-alarm fire in downtown Sonora this afternoon destroyed a two-story house.

The address was 153 S. Shepherd at Theall and housed Foster and Associates and Charles Marangio Book Distributing.

The house´s resident, Kirstie Spahr, came rushing home from her job downtown at the county public defender´s office to find flames boiling from the front section of the home and firefighters battling the fire in the front part of her house.

Spahr started to scream for her pet dog, saying it was trapped on the top floor of the burning house. But valiant work by firefighters resulted in the rescue of Spahr´s dog, named Renny.

18-year-old Sonora City Fire Department firefighter David Port braved the smoke and flame and rescued the dog.

“When I went back up [to the second floor], someone had opened a door upstairs, and didn´t see him run out, but he started to come down the stairs. At first he ran back and forth, but I was able to grab him and bring him out,” said Port.

Fire department Spokeswoman Deborah Keenan said the house was an older house, and that means it was not built with modern-day construction techniques.

“This is real old-style construction, obviously, so it´s going to spread. Basically, if it has a basement, it´s going to go from the basement to the ceiling instantaneously. So there´s nothing to stop it,” said Keenan.

Additional firefighters were called out just prior to 4:30pm, due to the heat of the day, which officials say was causing firefighters to be overcome with heat stroke.

Firefighters are still on the scene of the blaze, and they´re saying it´s possible that they may have to investigate the fire as a possible crime scene.