South Bay fires damage houses in San Jose, Mountain View

Firefighters across the South Bay responded to two fires Wednesday that damaged homes in San Jose and Mountain View.

A two-alarm fire erupted about 12:20 p.m., sending firefighters scrambling to a house on the 100 block of Scharff Avevue in East San Jose, according to the San Jose Fire Department. Fire crews managed to bring the flames under control by 12:34 p.m., the agency reported on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.

The flames damaged about half of the house, displacing the two adults who lived there, according to Jake Pisani, a San Jose Fire Department spokesperson. No one was injured in the blaze.

The fire came several hours after a pre-dawn blaze in Mountain View.

The fire began shortly before 3:30 a.m. on the 1400 block of Ernestine Lane, according to the Mountain View Fire Department. When firefighters arrived, all of the people living inside the house had already managed to escape while smoke bellowed from a garage attached to the house, the agency reported.

Firefighters managed to stop the flames from spreading to the rest of the house. Still, emergency crews had to cut utility service to the home during the fire, leaving two adults and three children displaced from the blaze, the fire department said. One person living at the house was evaluated by paramedics, but opted against going to hospital for further care; the specific nature of those injuries remained unclear.

The causes of both fires remained under investigation Wednesday afternoon.