a rio rancho famiyl escapes with the clothes on their backs as a fire completely destroyed their home. but some neighbors say the house could have been saved if the fire department had responded faster - kob eyewitness news 4 - brought those concerns to fire officials. eddie garcia is live at the scene near chayote & 550 with more. all the neighbors we spoke to say it took the fire department an excess of 20 minutes just to get here as this house lit up like a match-stick. the closest fire engines were about 2 miles away at a first responders event at home depot -- so why the delay...we gosome answers. larry casias says he heard screams from his next door neighbor lisa. when he ran outside - he immediately knew what was wrong... but he had no idea within minutes, it wod look like this. a cop pulls up, i grab a water hose because she's grabbing her's - saw a little smoke coming from the front of the garage. we went to put the fire out, the cop took the hose away from lisa and told me put the hose down, don't touch it'." these are pictures one of our viewers sent of the flames. lisa and her family moved to safety but soon her neighbors began to worry for another reason. the house next door was almost on fire and it would have been the next house and the next house - the whole neighborhood could have gone up. 20 minutes later - the whole house is engulfed now. the question on everyone's mind: where's the fire department? station 5 was at the home depot. as soon as we got the tone-out, as soon as we saw the smoke we were released them and they headed this way. earlier in the day our photographer was shooting this video at the first responder's event at the home depot. we counted as many as three fire engines on display - as firefighters demonstrated techniques to the public so was this the delay? the batallion chief says no. it's probably about a 2 mile distance from here to there. as soon as we saw that smoke we knew and that smoke determined it was already a big fire before we got toned out to it. he says it took 8 minutes to respond from the time they got the call. he said he was here in 8 minutes - i don't know, that is bs like it's going out of style. the battalion chief says they got the call at about 10:46 and first responders showed up at 10:54 this morning. that's 12 minutes earlier than nieghbors here are saying. live in rio rancho, eddie garcia kob eyewitness news 4.
