- B
My family and I live in Boulder Creek, California where the CZU Complex fire ran wild. We evacuated our home as the fires closed in, and we have just been allowed back. Everything is gone. Here is a photo of where we used to live. To make matters worse, on the day we were evacuated, we had been notified that my husband was losing his job.
UPDATES
9/19: We have moved into a rental in San Jose. We are very lucky as rentals are hard to come by. My little guy is wrapping himself in a fuzzy blanket and trying to ignore the world. I'm not supposed to call him "my little guy" since he is a freshman in high school. Although we updated our insurance just 2 years ago, our contractor friend told us we are badly under-insured. Material cost has increased significantly this year, probably due to Covid. There is no reason for this cost to go down. Mike is still finding hotspots every time he visits the site (I hate to call it a house). Thank you to all who have donated. I am adding a photo of some of the burned area. The only plant life not completely destroyed is the French broom. Everything else is ashes around it.
9/14: We have (had?) an old growth redwood on our property. The Big Basin arborist told us it was 1500 years old. It was already partially burned from a fire several hundred years ago, which is why it wasn't clear cut when everything else was cut 100 years ago. However, rats had been building nests inside and the material was flammable and burned. This tree originally had a hole and now has a tunnel. When firefighters came to put out hotspots, they also ran water into the redwood. Just in case.
We hope it will survive.
9/12: The fire is still burning in spots almost a month after it started. My husband walked around our forest and found some major hotspots. Here is an important one. Although it looks like everything is burned out, this tree was touching 2 trees above that had unburned canopy and could spread the fire. It took 10 firefighters to cut down surrounding trees and put out the burning tree. Water wasn't close.
EVACUATION
On August 18th, at about 7:00pm, we received a text message telling us we had 30 minutes to leave our house. We were not given an earlier evacuation warning, so we rushed in those 30 minutes to save all of our important items, at least as many as we could fit in our car.
Living in Boulder Creek, we thought we were prepared. We had a list of the important things we wanted to save, in case something like this ever came up. We were not able to make it all the way down our list in those 30 minutes. We focused on the irreplaceable things; there was no time to save anything else.
We saved our son Greg’s artwork. Our son is a talented artist, who has been taking art classes since he could hold a crayon. Greg has been entering art competitions since he was five years old. We put as many of his prized pieces of art in our car as we could. We could not grab them all.
As we drove away from our house and down our local roads, we wondered what our neighborhood would look like when this was all over. We have been told it may be weeks before we are allowed through our neighborhood to see what is left. After 3 weeks we were allowed in. There is nothing left but a pile of rubble.
OUR SITUATION
CZU has destroyed numerous homes and businesses. CZU has prevented our son, Greg, from starting his Freshman year of High School on time. As of now, his high school started a month late because of the disruption of CZU.
We have been staying at my sister’s house, sleeping on her living room floor since August 18th. We are trying to return to as normal a life as possible. We have found a house to rent for a short while, until we understand how damaged our house really is.
On top of the CZU fire, on August 18th, only hours before we were told to evacuate, my husband, Mike, was told that he was being let go at work. So, we have lost our house to this fire, and my husband has lost his job.
I set up this gofundme in order to help us as we rebuild and to provide for our family during this challenging time. Any little bit will help and would be truly appreciated.
Thank you for reading this, and I will try and keep this updated as we learn more.
UPDATES
9/19: We have moved into a rental in San Jose. We are very lucky as rentals are hard to come by. My little guy is wrapping himself in a fuzzy blanket and trying to ignore the world. I'm not supposed to call him "my little guy" since he is a freshman in high school. Although we updated our insurance just 2 years ago, our contractor friend told us we are badly under-insured. Material cost has increased significantly this year, probably due to Covid. There is no reason for this cost to go down. Mike is still finding hotspots every time he visits the site (I hate to call it a house). Thank you to all who have donated. I am adding a photo of some of the burned area. The only plant life not completely destroyed is the French broom. Everything else is ashes around it.
9/14: We have (had?) an old growth redwood on our property. The Big Basin arborist told us it was 1500 years old. It was already partially burned from a fire several hundred years ago, which is why it wasn't clear cut when everything else was cut 100 years ago. However, rats had been building nests inside and the material was flammable and burned. This tree originally had a hole and now has a tunnel. When firefighters came to put out hotspots, they also ran water into the redwood. Just in case.
We hope it will survive.
9/12: The fire is still burning in spots almost a month after it started. My husband walked around our forest and found some major hotspots. Here is an important one. Although it looks like everything is burned out, this tree was touching 2 trees above that had unburned canopy and could spread the fire. It took 10 firefighters to cut down surrounding trees and put out the burning tree. Water wasn't close.
EVACUATION
On August 18th, at about 7:00pm, we received a text message telling us we had 30 minutes to leave our house. We were not given an earlier evacuation warning, so we rushed in those 30 minutes to save all of our important items, at least as many as we could fit in our car.
Living in Boulder Creek, we thought we were prepared. We had a list of the important things we wanted to save, in case something like this ever came up. We were not able to make it all the way down our list in those 30 minutes. We focused on the irreplaceable things; there was no time to save anything else.
We saved our son Greg’s artwork. Our son is a talented artist, who has been taking art classes since he could hold a crayon. Greg has been entering art competitions since he was five years old. We put as many of his prized pieces of art in our car as we could. We could not grab them all.
As we drove away from our house and down our local roads, we wondered what our neighborhood would look like when this was all over. We have been told it may be weeks before we are allowed through our neighborhood to see what is left. After 3 weeks we were allowed in. There is nothing left but a pile of rubble.
OUR SITUATION
CZU has destroyed numerous homes and businesses. CZU has prevented our son, Greg, from starting his Freshman year of High School on time. As of now, his high school started a month late because of the disruption of CZU.
We have been staying at my sister’s house, sleeping on her living room floor since August 18th. We are trying to return to as normal a life as possible. We have found a house to rent for a short while, until we understand how damaged our house really is.
On top of the CZU fire, on August 18th, only hours before we were told to evacuate, my husband, Mike, was told that he was being let go at work. So, we have lost our house to this fire, and my husband has lost his job.
I set up this gofundme in order to help us as we rebuild and to provide for our family during this challenging time. Any little bit will help and would be truly appreciated.
Thank you for reading this, and I will try and keep this updated as we learn more.