Fire Wipes Out Family’s Hopes for a Happy Yule

LANCASTER —  The Rudolphs aren’t expecting much today. At 8 a.m. Christmas Eve, Hans Rudolph and Susen McKenzie were jolted awake by the whine of their smoke alarm. Hans Rudolph went into the living room and found the front wall engulfed in flames--the start of a blaze that left them 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, pulled his three daughters away from the Godzilla video they had opened before Christmas and shepherded them into the chilly morning.

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

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

By the time he retrieved his fire extinguisher from the unattached garage, the flames were so hot and the air so choked 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 42600 block of 7th Street East in the semirural Mojave Desert, screaming for help. The driver of a diesel truck parked in a repair yard behind the burning house called 911. As seven Los Angeles County firetrucks pulled up, flames stabbed through the roof.

“I believe we’ll just have to take the loss,” said Hans 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.”

Besides, little was left.

What the fire didn’t consume, the high-pressure water 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 Hans Rudolph Sr., “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 Rudolphs’ 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 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 the Rudolphs 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 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 Mervyn’s gift certificates worth $50. The Antelope Valley Chapter of the Red Cross has offered additional clothing, food, housing and toys.

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

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.

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

“Things will all work out some way or another--things happen for a reason,” Rudolph said.

McKenzie disagreed. “I don’t know any good reason this would happen,” she said.