Dog alerts family as fire damages century-old church in South Los Angeles – NBC Los Angeles

As flames raged at the historic Crouch Memorial Church in South Central, a small dog alerted her family to wake up.

“Luckily we received a signal from our dog. She barked very loudly and gave everyone the signal. Like, 'Hey, wake up,'” Richard Vaquero said.

Vaquero said that around 2:30 a.m. Friday, he rushed outside to see a fire just steps from his South Los Angeles home on East 27th Street.

“I just started taking my kids outside, pushing them outside, like, getting them to a safe area,” Vaquero said.

Once the family was safe, he went to the back of the house, its wooden fence in ashes, and quickly grabbed a garden hose in hopes of saving the family's two cars.

His face and arms were burned in the process, but both cars were ultimately destroyed.

“I mean, as you saw, this is the hole my kids usually have here. I mean, I really have no words. I mean, I’m speechless right now,” Vaquero said.

Los Angeles firefighters said the church was fully engulfed when they arrived. It took 66 firefighters 38 minutes to put out the flames.

The fire came 11 years after a 2013 fire started by a wall heater in the prayer room damaged the attic and roof.

Since then, the owners have been committed to restoring the building, and even though it's supposed to be vacant, Vaquero said that's not quite the case.

Vaquero said he saw homeless people in the area. “I saw them jump, on my side jumping towards the church,” he said.

The church was built over a century ago, in 1896, the same year as the first modern Summer Olympics.

It was the center of the Prohibition movement in Los Angeles in the early 20th century.

Vaquero is now looking to the city and the church owner to determine how to preserve the property and protect the community.

All things considered, he holds his head high and is grateful for the courage of the smallest member of the family.

“Lola, she saved us. If she wasn’t there, it probably would have been worse,” Vaquero said.

By the grace of God, he said it might be burned but it is surely not broken.

“Luckily I’m alive. Burned, yes I am. But my wife tells me, 'Oh, this is a car that we worked hard for, to get,' it's no, don't worry, it's just the hardware,” Vaquero said.