"He thought he was making Christmas lights," San Bernardino City Fire Department Capt. Vinson Gates said of the child. "He was honest. He did a `boo-boo.' "

The lighter set a bedsheet ablaze, and flames spread through much of the upper floor of the two-story home at 2963 N. California St. Heat quickly blew out the second-floor windows, allowing blustery Santa Ana winds to fan the flames.

"I heard everybody screaming there was fire in the house," said Doreen McCusker, who shares the rented home with her son, daughter-in-law and their four children. "I yelled, `Get the kids, get the kids!' So they brought the kids and we ran out."

No one was hurt. Fire officials estimated the damage at $45,000.

The house has no smoke alarms, and the adults were in bed when the blaze erupted at 4:19 p.m., fire investigators said.

"We are all sick," McCusker said. "We have the flu."

When the first fire crew arrived, smoke was pouring from the front upstairs window and flames were roaring through the rear upstairs window.

Yet, Gates' crew -- he and two other people -- couldn't enter the building to fight the flames until help arrived. State law requires that at least two firefighters enter a blazing building, and only if a back-up pair is standing by outside to rescue them.

But by pouring water into the house from outside, the crew was able to slow the flames' spread until a second fire engine arrived.

"The whole upstairs has heavy smoke damage, and one (bed) room gutted by fire," Gates said. "We thought we were going to lose the whole structure."

Reach Richard Brooks at (909) 890-4452 or rbrooks@pe.com