A small house fire occurred on Deerfoot Lane Sunday evening. Fortunately, the resident lived across the street from one of the Idyllwild Fire Department’s paid-call firefighters — Steve Friemoth.

Answering the knock on his door, Friemoth encountered his neighbor who asked if her children could stay with the Friemoth’s while the resident attended to the house fire.

Friemoth brought the children and neighbor inside, confirmed IFPD had been called and then walked across the street with his fire extinguisher.

“I was just being neighborly,” he said. He encountered a house bellowing smoke and a glow from the fire in the kitchen. Apparently the oven’s self-cleaning mechanism caused the fire.

After a second trip, Friemoth had doused the fire sufficiently and deferred to the IFPD crew who arrived and finished extinguishing the fire.