Santa Rosa Fires

As a roofing contractor, I knew when I heard the huge gusts of wind that the next day would  be spent fixing a few roofs from falling debris. I never dreamed of the scenario that was unfolding as I tried to get some sleep.

At 1:30 a.m. Wendy woke me and said she smelled smoke, our window was open and the wind was still blowing hard, I hadn’t heard any sirens so I was unconcerned at that point and managed to drop back to sleep.

Somethings wrong

My 16-year-old son Riley knocked on our door at 3:3 AM. He said that his girlfriend’s house was under threat of burning down up in the Petrified Forest area. He also said his social media was blowing up with reports of fire. We quickly stepped into our street situated in the Grace Tract neighborhood of Santa Rosa, and observed a large red glow directly north, just over the Montecito ridge, several propane tank explosions per minute were also heard coming from the same direction.  His girlfriend’s house was west of our location by 10 or 12 miles, I was sure this had to be a different fire. I was wrong.

How much time do we have?

Within 5 minutes we were heading up to Fountain Grove 1.5 miles away, where I thought the glow with emanating from, I felt the need to ascertain the danger to our own neighborhood. Moderate amounts traffic going the opposite direction, this was looking serious. As we made the turn up Fountain Grove Parkway we were starting to get a picture of what was to come, within a quarter of a mile we were in the firestorm, lots of large flaming pieces of debris falling all around us, winds whipping the flames all the way across the Road at a tremendous speed. We turned back amid large burning houses along the ridge, on both sides of the road. As I looked for any sign of people who needed help it struck me that no firemen or emergency personnel where anywhere in sight, that alone added to the seriousness of the situation, where they really spread that thin? As I traveled along the ridge back towards my house I stopped short of the Montecito off-ramp and stared at the horizon while the wind buffeted my truck, we could see the glow of the Calistoga fire, a fire that we thought was somewhere near Kenwood/ Sonoma Valley, and a fire burning behind Taylor Mountain. This is North, East, and South of our position. My first thought was that this could not be coincidental.  Heading towards downtown it all seemed like a bad dream, now we were slotted in with a steady line of cars heading away from the fire still 3 hours before dawn. I was so stunned, it did not occur to me to go check on another house that we owned close by. We cruised downtown. It was crowded and all the shopping center parking lots were full of cars, trucks, motor homes, boats etc. with groups of people hovering around.

Incoming refugees

As we arrived back in the hood, our neighbor John came to ask what I thought we should do. Looking North to the glowing horizon, then straight up, I could still see the stars as the smoke was moving another direction which meant the fire was moving another direction. I decided that my criteria would be embers, if embers and ash start falling in our neighborhood then we would start the process of heading out. Our neighborhood slowly started filling up with cars from the friends and family of our neighbors who were taking refuge and running from the flames.

Sleepy Hollow

Another sortie at 6:30 a.m. this time to our rental house. I had texted the tenants, a great couple with two elementary aged kids. They had fled around 1:00 A.M. I really did not think that the fire had raced down the mountainside into where the house was located. I was again shocked to see the fire consuming houses about two blocks down the street from our house. The wind was still howling but seemed to be crossing to the North, I thought we had a good chance of making it through the night, even though, I still didn’t see any fireman. I headed home again determined to get our house in order.

When to stay, When to go

As I re-entered our neighborhood, my neighbor John asked me what I’d seen and my thoughts. It was him, his wife and a young son with his two elderly parents. For me it was going to be just jump in a vehicle with the kids and go, it was going to take a little bit more for him to get it all together and I could see he really needed information to put together a plan. My wife Wendy was putting together an emergency kit with some food and clothes and important documents just a case we had to bail quickly. I went back to my original thoughts even though the smoke was now over the house, there was no ash or embers falling directly in our neighborhood. We would stay for now with a careful eye on the large wooded hill a half a block north of us.

Helplessness and Impatience

I skulked around the house for a few hours listening to the news, then headed back up to the rental house around 9:30. Around this time we were listening to the reports and we were very concerned not just for ourselves, but for all the other displaced or soon to be evacuated people. Our street was now packed with cars. Thoughts started to come back to me that I hadn’t felt in a long time, when I was 17 our house had burned down and with it everything I owned, which as a 17-year-old may seem like a lot, but it’s really nothing in the grand scheme of things. I thought of our tenants and their 2 young kids, and how devastating it would be for them to lose it all on a whim just like that. My wife Wendy had been at the house the entire time and I asked her if she would join me for a check on the property.

Fire and Fury

As we approached the area black smoke was billowing in a solid line East and West across the Valley behind the Hidden Valley school. Two blocks away we saw flames climbing 50′ into the air, ash covered cars were flooding out of the area. People coming out of their houses with boxes and bags determined to make a dignified escape. One block away to the right on a side street all the houses on one side were gone, chimneys only. Our house was still standing but now the fire was just 3 houses away! I told Wendy to wait as I exited my truck. I saw Ray, my plumber coming out of his vehicle about the same time, he was checking on his boss’s house which was just up the street from mine. We jogged in and with a quick glance we determined his house was gone, the only recognizable thing was his burned out pickup truck and Service Van out front. Again, at this point there were no firemen to be seen and it raged totally out of control spreading from house-to-house. It reminded me of earlier when I was up in on the top of Fountain Grove, only the gusting was not so strong but still the large flaming clumps of household debris were dropping like small bombs all around. Ray noticed a small fire starting up in the bark right next to my house, he ran over and kicked it out. I thought to myself that’s going be the problem right there, all this dry bark wants to catch on fire when the embers hit, looks great but sucks in a firestorm. There were still two houses between the main force of the fire and us. I thought if I could keep the last house from starting up maybe it would slow the burn rate as the fire marched down the block. I found a garden hose and remarkably when I turned it on water flowed freely, I was surprised by the pressure. I headed for the North side of the house and started hosing down the vegetation around the gas meter, Ray was still with me and muttered something about the gas meter being situation being serious. I stood back around the corner just in case, and started hosing down the fence that was fully engulfed in fire, after a few minutes I realized that flames were working their way through the trees from one property to the next and that my hose wasn’t big enough to make any real difference. I trotted back towards my house, made a quick sweep of the rear yard to make sure no fires were burning back there. By the time I got back to the front yard the fires were starting up in the bark again, Ray again went and smothered them. About then I saw my first emergency vehicle of the day, it was a sheriff in a pickup truck urging us to move on and get out. Breathing was difficult, my eyes were watering, the smoke was thick, it really didn’t take any more than that for me to know that trying to do anymore without danger to myself or Ray was futile. I headed up the street to where Wendy had moved the truck back, she was not happy with me, she didn’t know it but I had already mentally given up. As we drove away I was sure I would never see that house again. Three blocks later it was a different world, still people loading possessions into vehicles but I could breath, and things weren’t exploding around me. Now as I was driven back to my house I started to realize that the only thing between this neighborhood and mine was a solid sea of houses (fuel)  if the wind shifted. I reiterated to my neighbor John when I got back that I would stay till the embers fell from the sky, only now I was looking skyward more often as small flakes of ash started to descend, and wondering how long I would actually stay.

Trying to gather the tribe

I had been trying to get a hold of my mother who lived out in a retirement community on the east side of town all morning but I had no luck with the cell phone. The only thing that seemed to be working that day was the text system, and my mom doesn’t text. I headed that way and was blocked 3 miles short. The police on the barricade told me they had 100 officers going door to door and they would ensure she left. Nothing else to do here, move along please said the officer.

I was witnessing people’s total losses, and I reminded myself that it was just in fact, stuff. More and more people had migrated to our neighborhood in the Grace Tract and I was starting to hear the stories of so many people who had lost all of it. One neighbor had her parents and her husband’s parents tucked in at her house, both couples were dealing with total losses. All they had was their loved ones and their pets.

Not knowing

After about 3 hours I headed back to what I referred to as the front lines to see how the Sleepy Hollow (rental house) neighborhood was faring. I observed the same large black billowing columns of smoke as I approached the fire line, only this time they seemed to be farther west with a lot of white smoke in the east side of the valley. As I turned the last corner on to Sleepy Hollow Drive, for the first time that day I saw a fire truck, its crew working to put out a house just across a small creek from ours it was wrecked but they weren’t going to let the fire spread beyond that, our house was intact along with two others, everything else in the immediate area was gone. Fires emanating from melted down gas meters, water spilling from broken water pipes and drifting smoke was the only movement. I was relieved and devastated at the same time. Another fire crew from Palo Alto was down the street, I walked over and thank them for their service, they asked which house had been mine, I pointed behind me to the corner house still standing, he told me that when they arrived on scene several volunteers/neighbors were wetting down the bark, putting out fires and trying to save the house. Well, people I didn’t even know but we’re presumably friends and acquaintances of our tenants were responsible for saving the house and belongings of the tenants. The scene was so different from the earlier trips, I couldn’t believe it. I felt like a huge weight was lifted from me. A broken window and a few fences that having cut down by a fire crew to reduce the amount of fuel around the house was all the damage I could see from the outside. I texted our tenant immediately and let them know that their house was still standing and that I felt like it was going to be ok. With all those fire crews around, you stop worrying so much. Also, the wind had died down. As I write this on Tuesday I can hear helicopters moving through the smoke overhead working on fires and hotspots. As we trail into the night more evacuations are being called, more houses are being lost. I realize that it’s not over for others, just delayed.

Businesses have been lost, employees have been displaced, stuff has disappeared, disintegrated, and possibly the loss of life. This will be hard, our new reality. #sonomastrong says it all.

Mark Warren