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Stranger warns homeowner her house is on fire
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AFTERMATH: A fence blocks off a house that was damaged by a fire Monday in Gilbert.
Thomas Boggan, Tribune
Gilbert homeowner Ev Harper was spending a quiet Monday afternoon in her living room reading a good book when someone knocked on her front door. When she answered, a stranger informed Harper that her home was on fire.
"I was just sitting on my sofa reading," Harper said. "He just happened to be driving by and saw the smoke."
Harper's home, in the 1900 block of E. Cortez in Gilbert, caught fire from a blaze on the exterior of her western neighbor's home, according to Gilbert Fire Captain Mike Palmatier.
Firefighters believe the blaze began accidentally, but Palmatier said they could not be sure until an investigation is complete. Both homes sustained more than $150,000 worth of damage, he said.
The home where the fire began was empty at the time.
Harper was visiting the home with her family and talking to her neighbors Tuesday less than 24 hours after the fire. Her damaged home, mostly scorched in the rooms directly behind her garage, is surrounded behind a chain-link fence.
Jerry Capraro, Harper's neighbor to the east, said he arrived just as the firefighters attacked the blaze.
"She's a very nice woman," Capraro said of Harper, his neighbor of eight years. "She didn't need this."
Nearby homeowners came together in front of the home during the blaze Monday afternoon, according to Harper's neighbor Bill Meilner.
"It was pretty scary," he said. "We were making sure all the neighbors were out of their houses."
Meilner said neighbors haven't learned the identity of the man who may have possibly saved Harper's life, knowing only that he pulled up in a van and left after he informed her of the fire.
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