As flames raged through the historic Crouch Memorial Church in South Central, a small dog alerted her family to wake up.
“Luckily, we got a signal from our dog. She was barking out loudly, and she gave the signal to everybody. Like 'hey wake up,'” Richard Vaquero said.
Vaquero said that around 2:30 a.m. Friday, he rushed outside to see fire just feet from his South LA home on East 27th street.
“Just started taking my kids out, pushing them out, like, get them into a safe zone,” Vaquero said.
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With the family safe, he went to the back of the house, his wooden fence in ashes and quickly grabbed a water hose hoping to save the family’s two cars.
His face and arms were burned in the process, yet in the end both cars were destroyed.
“I mean, as you've seen, it's the hole my kids usually have in here. I mean, I really don't have words. I mean, I'm speechless right now,” Vaquero said.
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The Los Angeles Fire Department said the church was fully engulfed when they arrived. It took 66 firefighters 38 minutes to put out the flames.
This fire came 11 years after a 2013 fire sparked by a wall heater in the prayer room damaged the attic and roof.
Property owners were determined ever since to restore the building, and while it’s supposed to be vacant, Vaquero said that’s not entirely the case.
Vaquero said he has seen homeless people in the area. “I have seen them jump, my side to jump to the church,” he said.
The church was built more than a century ago in 1896, the same year of the first modern summer Olympic games.
It was the center of the prohibition movement in la in the early 20th century.
Vaquero is now looking to both the city and the church owner to figure out how to preserve the property and protect the community.
All things considered, he’s keeping his chin up and grateful for the bravery of the smallest member of the family.
“Lola, she saved us. If she wasn't here, it probably would have been worse,” Vaquero said.
By the grace of God, he said he might be burned but he surely is not broken.
“Good thing I’m alive. Burned, yes I am. But my wife is like, ‘Oh, it's a car that we worked hard for it, to get it,' it's like, no, don't worry, it's just the material,” Vaquero said.
