House catches fire twice in same night

Officials are investigating a “suspicious” house fire that happened twice in one night, coming back bigger and stronger after firefighters extinguished the original flames, officials said.

The Fountain Valley Fire Department was called out just before 11 p.m. Friday to a kitchen fire in a residential two-story house on Silktree Street in Fountain Valley, Fire Capt. Joe Cucinotti said.

Three fire engines, two trucks and about 40 men from Fountain Valley, the Huntington Beach Fire Department and the Orange County Fire Authority responded to the call.

Officials found the kitchen and an attached room in flames, and it had extended up into the attic, Cucinotti said.

Firefighters stayed on the scene until 3 a.m. spraying down the area with water and special foam and checking “every nook and cranny” with a device that detects heat, Cucinotti said.

When officials left, there was no significant heat detected anywhere in the house, but the fire departments were called back to the scene about 4:25 a.m. to find the entire house fully involved in the fire, Cucinotti said.

Cucinotti called the circumstances suspicious and the incident is under investigation.

No one was harmed in the fire and the family was not present when the house caught fire the second time, officials said.

— Britney Barnes