Holiday spirit returns

Last week, Zoila Ornelas and her children ran in fear as their Warner Avenue apartment burned to an ashy ruin.

But just a few days later, the firefighters who had come to their rescue that night surprised them at the station by saving Christmas too.

The family was invited to the station on the pretense the kids would get a ride in a fire truck, but stood bewildered as firefighters presented 7-year-old Zurynda Meyers with a powder-blue Bratz bicycle, replacing her pink bike that melted in the flames. As Zurynda hopped on the bike and started tearing around the driveway, the firefighters unloaded piles of board games, action figures, dolls and other toys for the children.

“Oh my God!” Ornelas said, moved to tears. “They’re just bringing more and more.”

Fire station Capt. Mike Perry topped off the gifts with a special one for 4-year-old Mikolai Meyers.

“Of course we had to get you a fire truck,” he said as he handed the child a plastic engine, then handed the kids badges and red plastic fire helmets.

It was a calmer scene than Monday evening.

Ornelas heard her 1-year-old crying in the other room when she was cooking, but left a pan full of oil heating as she rushed to take care of the child.

When she came back to the kitchen, it was engulfed in flames. No one was hurt, but the place was ruined. The family temporarily moved in with a friend.

“That was my first mistake like that, ever,” she said. “It’s going to be non-reoccurring. But when you have an infant sleeping and you hear her cry, something takes over.”

Perry and his firefighters said they were moved by the loss the family had suffered, so they decided to help out.

“After the fire, we took them back to the apartment and saw the bike ruined,” Perry said. “It kind of hit me, where we needed to try to do something, get some normalcy back into these kids’ lives.”

Perry started calling local stores for help, ultimately getting promises from Wal-Mart, Vons and Albertson’s to help out. One store manager even chipped in his own money, he said. Along with help from the fire department’s Spark of Love drive, they tracked down enough money and toys to help out the kids, not to mention grocery gift certificates to replace all the ruined groceries.

As for the fire truck ride that drew the kids there in the first place, that was real, too.

“Who wants to go?” Perry asked as Mikolai jumped up and ran for the door.