They tried to eat their tacos in their car, but they had lost their appetite for supper, and one of the boys was crying as they waited while Bismarck firefighters tried to put out a Saturday evening fire in their north Bismarck mobile home in the 5300 block of Claridge Loop.

Cari Johnson, 37, said her family had only been away from their home for about 15 minutes - to get supper, tacos at Taco John's, and drop off movies. But when they got back into the neighborhood, the fire trucks were already there.

Kurt Leben, a battalion chief for the Bismarck Fire Department, said the department got the call at around 6:10 or 6:15 p.m., and firefighters were there in five minutes and then had the fire out in another five minutes.

He said the fire started in the kitchen, and the damage was mainly there. There was fire damage, but mainly smoke damage, to a hallway and the living room. And there was smoke damage throughout the rest of the home. He said investigators at that point didn't know what had caused the fire.

Jim Ustanko, 51, a neighbor who lives behind the Johnsons, said he had just finished talking to the Johnsons as they were on their way to get supper, when, while relaxing in his yard a few minutes later, he noticed smoke and ran through the back gate. Ustanko said he saw flames coming out of the kitchen window, grabbed a hose and sprayed water through the kitchen window. He said it seemed to knock the fire down. He continued to pour water in until the fire department arrived.

"I didn't want those people to lose their personal belongings,"he said.

Ustanko said he was pleased with the fire department's quick response.

The Johnsons, Cari and her husband, Doug, their two boys, Nolan, 9, and Chase, 6, and their dog, which they had decided to take with them to buy supper, were all out of the house when it happened.

"Iwas going to leave the dog at home," Cari Johnson said.

But at the last minute, he got on board, too. Only the family's pet hermit crabs were left behind. There wasn't information available on how the crabs were doing.

The two boys start school on Monday. Chase is starting kindergarten and Nolan is in fourth grade. They were planning on eating supper and then were going to do some school shopping.

Instead, strangers, like an American Red Cross representative, were asking Cari Johnson if she needed assistance for the night.

And as she sat on one of Ustanko's lawn chairs in his backyard, she talked about being overwhelmed at the moment, and not sure what she needed.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)