Turlock firefighters evacuate 4 residents unaware fire threatened their home

Four people who didn’t know their residence had caught fire were evacuated Saturday afternoon on the 500 block of West Springer in Turlock.

At about 4:30 p.m., Turlock Fire Department crews were dispatched to reports of smoke coming from a backyard. The first engine crew saw smoke from the yard and coming from garage vents, so upgraded the call to a structure fire.

Firefighters determined that a fire on the exterior of the attached garage was beginning to spread inside through a window, Capt. Kevin Tidwell said in a news release. They quickly got the four occupants out of the home and shut off utilities.

Crews quickly extinguished the flames, containing fire damage to the exterior, with only some smoke damage to the interior of the garage, Tidwell said. Because the fire was not allowed to spread into the residential space, the occupants were not displaced.