A Los Angeles man is being hailed as a hero for saving eight homes in his neighborhood from the Eaton Fire by rushing into a dangerous fire zone with a garden hose.
“So when I got here, the back of the house was on fire. I was driving down the road and I could see the eaves. So I got the hose out…I got the yard out.” Pete Villani, a cinematographer who lives in the Altadena neighborhood, told CBS News.
“Then I went to the house next door here and the fence was on fire…I put it out,” he said, pointing to the neighboring house.
Villani is credit About major movies including the third installment of spiderman and rush hour He said he then left the neighborhood for “several hours” but returned to find flames dangerously close to another neighbor's home.
He grabbed the hose again and let it out too.
“Then I went to Eleanor's here,” he explained to CBS, gesturing to someone else's house. “Her backyard was on fire and her fence was on fire, so I went and put it out.”
He recalled Eleanor coming home at the same time and helping him put out a fire in another neighbor's garden. “I threw water with a shovel and wiped out that house,” Virani said.
“Then it was a fire lookout and a looter lookout,” he said.
CBS reported that the cinematographer continued to battle the Altadena blaze for about 10 hours until his garden hose lost water pressure.
He extinguished the fire in eight homes, but it is unclear how many more homes would have burned had it not been for his courageous actions to slow the flames.
Anchor Christina Huang said she also saw “someone who appeared to be looters checking out a neighbor's property,” but she scared them away.
“He is Pete Villani and he saved our house. We love Pete!!!,” one woman wrote in the comments section below the report.
Another commenter wrote, “This used to be my neighbor. The first house he pointed to is the one I grew up in.” “Pete is just the type of guy who is going to do his best to help. It's a great story.”
Yet another woman commented that he “saved my son's house!”
The Eaton Fire remains only 27 percent contained, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in an update on X Sunday afternoon.
