Teen Who Helped Save 'Bachelor' Mansion From Wildfire Says She Just 'Needed to Do Something' (Exclusive)

The mansion's owner, Marshall Haraden, tells ET that he's 'grateful' to 16-year-old Ava Friedman.

The Bachelor mansion still stands -- perhaps all thanks to Ava Friedman. 

The 16-year-old lives next door to the famed home in Agoura Hills, California, with her dad, and it was their quick thinking that rushed firefighters to the property after flames reached the home during the devastating Woolsey Fire on Friday.  

Friedman told ET on Tuesday that she and her father had returned after evacuating to check the damage on their own home, and that's when they spotted the blaze next door. "We wanted to get this fire out as quickly as possible... so we got into our car and we tried to catch the attention of a fire engine," she said. 

"These brave men and women went to the fire as soon as we told them this, and thankfully they put it out. I'm just happy there wasn't any more damage," she added. 

Two other structures on the property were destroyed, but the mansion, called Villa De La Vina, remains standing. Friedman said that while the mansion's owners -- whom she's lived next to for over five years -- are "respectful," she wasn't trying to save the home just because it hosted Bachelor contestants.

"The first thing that comes to your mind when you see that is danger, it doesn't matter whose house it is. We're all just trying to help each other up here, especially in this difficult time. I just wanted to help out and my dad wanted to help out... we were just like, 'OK, we just need to do something as soon as we can,'" she shared. "The worst thing I saw [was] probably just the damage the fire had done already... to see that kind of damage was really sad." 

In an interview with ET's Kevin Frazier on Tuesday, the Bachelor mansion's owner, Marshall Haraden, said he feared the worst after reports that the home had burned down. 

"A friend of mine called me... they said, 'Dude, I just went by your house. Your house is gone,'" he said. Haraden is a retired San Diego fireman, but evacuated with his family on firefighters' orders. 

"I would have loved to stay, maybe I could have made a difference," he said, before expressing his gratitude toward Friedman and her family for saving his home. "She's a young, nice kid, and my neighbor. I don't get to see her often but I'm grateful to her. I talked to her on the phone the other day, [her] and her dad. And her dad assured me that he had been up there, looked and saw the house is there. I just went up there, saw it yesterday and I'm real happy about what I saw." 

While the Bachelor mansion is OK, many hundreds of other families lost their homes in the Woolsey and Hill Fires in Southern California since the blaze started on Thursday. Gerard ButlerCaitlyn Jenner, Neil Young, Camille Grammer and the Kardashian family are just some of the stars who have spoken out about how they've been affected by the fire.

See more in the video below. 

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