By Lauren McSherry

After a Los Altos residential fire displaced four people earlier this month, Red Cross officials are reminding local agencies and residents that they should be among the first called when disasters strike.

In the case of the fire that occurred on the morning of Nov. 8 on San Antonio Road, emergency responders failed to call in the Red Cross’ Disaster Action Team.

If one of the displaced tenants hadn’t been a Red Cross volunteer who called the action team, the local chapter would not have been notified, said Geoff Ziman, a Los Altos resident and the action team’s coordinator. The fire started in a first-floor apartment in the Los Altos Gardens complex and quickly spread to the second floor, damaging four apartments. Ziman said that because of the “error of omission” the team didn’t find out about the emergency until that evening, nearly too late to be of help.

“(We’re) a resource that stands ready 24-7,” he said. “The problem is that if we don’t get there quickly, people get dispersed and don’t know of our services or don’t know what to do.”

Trish Bubenik, executive director of the Palo Alto Area Red Cross, which serves Mountain View, Los Altos and Palo Alto, emphasized that the Red Cross is chartered to respond to residential fires and exists to provide emergency lodging, food, clothing and mental health services during a disaster.

“We want our Red Cross dispatcher to receive information for a residential fire as soon as possible,” Bubenik said. “We want to be there with the firefighters or shortly thereafter, so that we can take care of the immediate needs of the individuals and families involved.”

Unlike the one-alarm Nov. 8 fire, Ziman and his team were immediately called in just weeks earlier by the Mountain View Fire Department for a two-alarm apartment fire on California Street.

In that situation, the team assisted 16 displaced residents, Ziman said.

Dennis Johnson, an inspector for the Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, the agency charged with responding to Los Altos fires, said standard operating procedure is to alert the action team.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Normally, if people are displaced, we’re the ones to call the Red Cross.”

Bubenik said that without the Red Cross on the scene, some needs created by a fire may not be serviced, such as the emotional trauma residents may be undergoing.

“It’s devastating,” she said. “People involved may be in shock.”

For more information on fire prevention or services offered by the Palo Alto Area Red Cross, visit www.paarc.org.