EL DORADO HILLS – Two off-duty firefighters are being praised after helping to rescue a 78-year-old woman trapped in a burning home on Broome Court in El Dorado Hills Thursday morning. 

Off-duty Captain Adam Tiffany of the El Dorado Hills Fire Department, and Gary Culmer, a CAL FIRE firefighter live in the neighborhood and came to help of their neighbors, after all of them evacuated the burning home with the exception of the 78-year-old had gotten trapped upstairs.

Without hesitation, the two sprang into action, along with Jessie Sanchez, who was at the residence with his girlfriend Jennifer Phillips when the fire broke out. Phillips’ Father and Brother were also at the home and were able to escape.

It was Phillips’ Mother who became trapped on the second story of the home. Sanchez and Phillips had both attempted to reach the trapped woman but were unable to do so as the fire’s intensity grew inside.

Quickly grabbing a ladder to reach the second-floor window where the woman was trapped as the department was enroute to the incident, the three men were able to bring the woman to safety.

“I went to the backyard, grabbed my A-frame ladder, came back around, threw up the ladder, got it pretty close to the house. And then Gary and Jessie and I helped her get down,” Tiffany said. “I would expect almost anybody to do this. If you have a ladder and you can be in a position to help, like, you know, that’s just a friendly neighbor thing to do.”

Firefighters from the El Dorado Hills Fire Department, along with CAL FIRE, were still on scene working to fully extinguish the fire and begin property recovery efforts around 9 a.m. Thursday. The home was heavily damaged in the fire, an estimated total of damage and property loss exceeds $500,000, according to the department.

The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.