It was a beautiful day for a bike ride on the Westside, an opportunity Benjamin Levy and his wife Trang were happy to take advantage of - deciding to ride down a local trail.
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As their adventure led them next to a set of train tracks, Benjamin saw smoke rising from the brush nearby.
He tells KNX Heroes producer Heather Jordan, "I was looking around for what I could do to stop it because they grow so fast, and by the time I realized that I wasn't going to find anything nearby to help with it, it had at least tripled since I'd first spotted it."
So he and his wife parked their bikes, and as he got closer to the flames, Benjamin saw that a train was coming, "So I flagged the train down because I was sure they had a fire extinguisher on board. At least one," he recalled.
Fortunately, the conductor stopped. Shocked but understanding the urgency, the conductor handed Benjamin a fire extinguisher.
Benjamin said, "I used it to put down the fire, but it wasn't complete, and I went back to ask him if there was a second one. At the same time, I was calling into the fire department, and they, fortunately, arrived. So I directed them to where the fire was, and they took out their hoses - By then, I knew I was no longer useful, so we left."
Coincidentally, this fire occurred on the same weekend as the 10-Freeway fire that caused over a million dollars in damage and significant traffic issues.
Had this fire not been stopped, it could have been another major news story with a potentially devastating outcome, "It was going to get really bad really quickly, and it was also close to the electrical box for the train system," said Benjamin.
His quick thinking and extraordinary effort land Benjamin Levy as our KNX Hero of the Week.
Check out all our KNX Heroes here.
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