House Fire Chars Longtime Leader’s Home

By Gene Williams
Staff Writer

March 15 -- A longtime volunteer leader and her husband appear to have escaped serious injury after an early-morning fire ripped through their Pico Neighborhood home Tuesday.

Firefighters rushed to the single-family residence of Joanne and Mike Leavitt at 2920 Kansas Avenue shortly after 5:59 a.m. when a fire official reported the blaze on his way to work.

“I looked up and saw a column of smoke,” said Fire Marshall Jim Glew, who was driving west on the 10 Freeway just past Centinela Avenue. Glew radioed in to headquarters.

By then the fire was burning throughout much of the home, sending billows of black smoke and flames out of a bay window which had shattered from the intense heat, witnesses said.

The Leavitts escaped the burning house through a back window, a neighbor said. Paramedics took the couple to a local hospital where they are being treated for smoke inhalation and minor cuts and bruises.

“They walked out on their own,” said Captain Scott Ziegert, the Fire Department spokesperson. The couple was taken to the hospital “mostly (as) a precautionary measure,” he added.

Ziegert said the exact cause of the fire is being investigated, but it appears to be an accident.

Neighbors said they were alerted to the danger by two youngsters who knocked on their doors shortly after the blaze began around dawn.

As the fire gained strength, the heat outside was enough to melt a plastic side-yard fence, witnesses said. An adjacent home received some minor heat and smoke damage, but no other houses were affected, fire officials said.

Firefighters arriving at the scene punched holes in the roof to let the heat out and doused the burning house with water. It took five fire companies only 15 minutes to put out the flames, fire officials said.

But friends of the Leavitts fear the home is a total loss. Within hours, they were already organizing to help.

“It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy for someone who has been such a valuable member to the community,” said Amy Dunbar, a neighbor who has done community service work with Ms. Leavitt.

Ms. Leavitt is a long-time member of the League of Women Voters and has been a president of both the local league and the county organization.

In addition, she has served on a variety of commissions and task forces on such issues as childcare, early education, juvenile justice reform, and development of new parks.

She is also a former president of the local PTA council.

“We do live in a fairly tight community,” Dunbar said, “so we’re quickly trying to find some way to help them.”

Those who would like to join in helping the family are encouraged to contact Barbara Inatsugu of the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica at inatsugub@aol.com