SAN DIEGO — A house caught fire in Linda Vista shortly after 5:00 p.m. Saturday.
Charlie Childs, who lives in the home, said he had just made dinner for his mother, who is nearly 90 years old and their cat, Boris.
Minutes later he saw the flames on the floor of the second story.
"I heard a ka-pop-pop-pop, and all the lights went out," Childs said. "I ran for the fire extinguisher, and boy it goes fast. It didn't work, so I ran for the garden hose and by the time I got to the garden hose, forget it, I couldn't get back in the house."
He said his mom, who has amnesia, was stuck inside.
"I'm not going to leave her in there," he said as his voice cracked. "I would have died okay."
He said the heat was burning the back of his throat. "I didn't know smoke got that hot, I mean Jesus, that was hot!" he added.
The fear and the pain did not stop him. "I grabbed my mother and I couldn't see because of the smoke, and I led her out of the house," he explained.
He turned to go back for Boris, but the fire had grown too fierce. "There's no way you could go back in there," Childs said. "You would have been dead."
He said he heard Boris meowing, and he did not make it out. Childs' was just relieved his mom did.
His sister and her dog were also in the home, and they also made it out. "That's my duty," he said. "I would have died to do that. I mean that's what you do." He suspects it may have been an electrical fire in an area where multiple cords were plugged in.
