A 16-year-old girl is responsible for saving 'The Bachelor' mansion from wildfire
Bachelor Nation may have been praying for The Bachelor mansion as the Woolsey Fire approached the ABC property in Agoura Hills, Calif., on Friday. It was a 16-year-old girl named Ava Friedman who ultimately saved it, though, when she and her father went to check on their own home, and saw that a fire had started at the estate next door.
“Everything was smoky. We went to visit our house to see if it was still standing and to see if we could save anything. There was fire everywhere, so we really had no idea if our house was still standing,” the teen told Us Weekly of her and her father’s risky trip through Agoura Hills. “We got to our house and we were like, ‘Thank God it’s still standing.’ We were just very thankful, but we saw next door, at The Bachelor house, there was a fire.”
Although fans were concerned about the status of the house and those who may have been filming inside it for Colton Underwood‘s upcoming season, Friedman was afraid the fire would spread to her family’s home. If the fire had advanced, there would not have been anyone there to stop it.
“It was like a ghost town because everyone had evacuated,” she explained. “We went to Kanan and we basically put our emergencies on [in our car] and tried to flag down a police officer or a firefighter to see if they could put out the fire, because that was a big source of danger. That could have easily gone onto our property and more of The Bachelor property. So we literally flagged them down and said, ‘OK, our house is down there, and the house next door is on fire. Can you please do what you can?’”
The show’s creator, Mike Fleiss, took to Twitter that day to share that he had not known what the condition of the mansion was.
I still don’t know exactly what condition #TheBachelor Mansion is in. But I do know that the beautiful community of Malibu — and the surrounding areas— are struggling. Good thoughts for all…
— Mike Fleiss (@fleissmeister) November 11, 2018
In the days since, Bachelor producers have confirmed to Us Weekly that production offices on the property burned down, as well as the whole back house. However, the majority of the property remains.
“We’re really glad that we found a brave firefighter to put it out,” Friedman said.
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
• Man finds wife’s wedding ring in ashes of home that burned down in devastating California wildfire
• American flag is the only thing to survive California wildfire that destroyed this entire neighborhood
• 93-year-old woman evacuated from California wildfire by garbageman
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