I guess it’s high time I write down my recollections of “our fire”, before all the details fall completely out of my head. Not that I’ll ever forget the smell of fire and the smell of wet ashes, or the emotions of that day, but as I try to write this down I realize I have had to check with Randy, a lot, about my “facts”. I hope that Keri, Brian and Randy will write their remembrances about “our fire” and add them as comments here so that we have it to pass on…for what reason I’m not exactly sure, sentimentality maybe? Nearly every time I post a story about moving and living on “the property” it seems I want to make a reference to the fire we had. But to link another story to this story, it has to be written, so here goes. When I think about that fire, it feels like such a long story with so many layers and emotions, and I don’t know if I can put it into written words. It’s probably not that the story is so long, but more that the fire is still such a big thing in my mind. Also, reflecting on the fire is really not very easy for me to do. It’s been 16 years since the fire, and when I see coverage of fires on television, or even hear about them on the radio, I cry, of course the second Big Fire we experienced only reinforces those feelings. Just the smell of burning fireplaces in the wintertime, seeing a fire truck with lights and sirens blaring racing somewhere, can bring the emotions, fear and helplessness mostly, of that day and the big fire to the surface, and in my mind, I’m right back there in that moment when I realized, “we’re losing everything”. I know that it’s maybe a cliché and everyone says it but it’s true, right after the fire, I had an overwhelming sense of relief and thankfulness, when I knew that my family was safe and uninjured. I am still so very grateful for God’s protection. I feel blessed that the fire was contained in about an hour, and that it was not the beginning of a huge forest fire. In the movie “Backdraft” there is a scene in it where they describe the fire as being alive, like an animal, more like a monster, having a mind, thinking almost. Being so close to something so devastatingly powerful gives you an awareness of just how small and not in control we are. Something that big, clarifies your perspective and you realize what really is important. Although I still think of the pictures, or the keepsakes, family heirlooms, and treasures that can never be replaced, or this thing or that thing…I know they were just things.

We moved onto the property June 16th and on July 22, 1991 we still had no electricity, gas or water, we had a phone line though. Of all the utilities that most of us take for granted, water is the only one you, in fact can’t do without. We were living in our newly purchased, for a bargain $700, partially furnished, 35 foot 1959 Nassau travel trailer.

To say we were roughing it is an understatement and is a story in itself. That evening I was bar-b-queuing again, Randy was reading a book in the “yard”, the kids were in the trailer playing a game, and we were just enjoying our “camping out” adventure, at that point, a little more than a month into it, I was not tired of camping out yet. I took the metal tray out of the barbecue, I did not use padded mittens or potholders to do this, the metal tray was not hot and all the briquettes were just cold ashes. I dumped the ashes in one of the plastic trashcans that we kept behind the huge shed, that we had just built, to hold all our stuff. It was big enough that Brian’s bunk bed was set up in there so he and his friend Jay could sleep in there.

I lit the briquettes and then waited for the coals to get ready. I use propane now so I don’t really remember, but I think it takes about 30 minutes before the coals are ready to start grilling. After I put the chicken on the grill I went into the trailer to prepare the rest of the meal. It seems like there was some kind of platform right outside the door to the shed and that is what the barbecue was sitting on. When I came back out to check on the chicken there was smoke coming out of the shed, and at first it looked like the smoke was coming up from the chicken, (sometimes it gets a little smoky when I barbecue) and then going into the shed, then coming back out again. As I’m noticing the smoke Randy notices the smoke too and then Old Dan, he was just a puppy then, came out of the shed whining, he had been in there sleeping on Brian’s bed. Randy looked inside the shed and realized there was a lot of smoke, now we both start to get a little panicky (well I’m panicking), we could see that the smoke was coming from the back corner of the shed, but we couldn’t go any farther into the shed because it was packed too tightly. We ran around to the backside of the shed where the trashcans were, and saw that the trashcan that I had put the ashes in and the corner of the shed were on fire! Here are some life lessons:

  1. Metal trashcans are better than plastic trashcans.
  2. All ashes should go in metal trashcans; I think they call them ashcans.
  3. How many blondes does it take to barbecue and/or clean out the grill?
  4. Do women and barbecuing really go together?
  5. You should always bury the ashes; we had more than 2 acres of land and again see #’s 2 – 4.

In my defense I was still very much the city girl.

The only water we had on the property was about 6 of those 2 ½ gallon water jugs with the little spouts. The ladder we had then was wooden. Randy remembers Brian, in just his boxer shorts and tennis shoes, up on top of that ladder, pouring the water from those jugs, it seemed like the water was just dribbling out, onto the roof and upper part of the shed. I think I was handing the jugs up to Brian, after ripping the little spout off of it. Randy went around to the door on the front of the shed, and went in, trying to get anything he could out of there. The tools were right in front, and he was able to get to a lot of them and threw them out onto the platform, but when Randy tried to go further in to get to more stuff, the heat from the fire was too intense and was singeing him. Sadly, the tools he did rescue melted anyway, he had only thrown them onto the platform and that was still too close, because the fire took the whole shed. It only took few frantic moments for us to use up the water from those jugs, which ended up being about as effective as spitting on a campfire, and did not slow down the fire in the least. When Randy came back around to where Brian was, he saw his half naked son on top of the wooden ladder that was now catching on fire too. Randy thinks we still have that ladder with the end of it all charred. Neighbors came from all around, in trucks, in cars, in ATV’s, on motorcycles, they came with their shovels and rakes, pitchforks, etc… to see what, if anything, they could do. Being that it was the end of ten years of drought, I’m sure that the huge pillar of black smoke coming up from our shed was all the motivation that they needed to come and help stop what very easily could have been a terrible forest fire. I have this vivid vision of a woman, just bashing the hell out of a stand pipe, with her shovel, that sits at the edge of the property about 40 feet from where the fire was blazing and devouring our shed and everything in it.

The rest of what happened is in slow/fast motion like in a movie. I think I had Keri call 911; she had trouble telling them where we were because there was no house so we didn’t have an address for her to give to the 911 operator. When our closest neighbor Jeff and his friends came, they started moving the motorcycles, which were sitting in front of the trailer, I think. When they did that Randy’s attention was diverted to that task, which is when he noticed the propane tank on the front of the trailer. He moved the truck and I must have moved the car up onto the road, all the while he is still trying to get things out of the shed and I must have been just getting more and more panicky bordering on hysteria, so Randy had Brian take me and Keri over to where the truck had been moved, to get me away from the fire. I know I became very hysterical at one point and I got very upset with the cop that showed up before the fire department. At the time, all I could see was that everything we owned was going up in flames and he was just standing there watching the fire. I remember yelling at him, “why aren’t you doing something?” his response was, “it isn’t my job to fight a fire”. Randy remembers me hitting him too…I’m not very proud of that, it must’ve been his follow-up comment which was “does it look like I’m dressed to fight a fire?” Three fire companies came, it seemed like it took them an eternity to get there. Wrightwood Fire Dept. was first, then Pinon Hills CDF and Phelan CDF, but it was too late, everything was gone by the time they got there. I was so relieved to see the firemen. And although they got the fire out fast, all our stuff was just a black smoldering heap. After the fire was out they took out their axes and bashed everything and hosed more water on and took shovels and threw dirt on the heap. I’m sure that is what needs to be done to make sure a fire is all the way out, but it’s hard to watch someone bash your things, which you’re hoping, may not have been completely destroyed by the fire, into just a pile of wreckage. All of our things and memories too, photo albums, the kids baby books, furniture (fortunately we still had the furniture that came with the trailer), the cradle Bill made for me when I was pregnant with Keri, that both the kids slept in, new washer/dryer, king size brass bed, refrigerator (I was so proud of that purchase, but that’s another story) all the Christmas ornaments the kids had made over the years, the heirloom Christmas ornament that had hung on the tree my whole childhood, my mom had just given it to me the year before for Christmas, it had hung on her childhood Christmas trees, and was given to her by her mother, when she moved to Hawaii to marry my dad, I never got to hang it on one of my trees, Randy’s antique camera collection, books, and so many things I don’t normally let myself try to remember. All those things, the practical and the sentimental, strangely didn’t seem very important at the time, we lost all our clothes, and you can’t do much, naked. Randy, Keri and I still had a few things, mostly work and play clothes, left in the trailer, but all of Brian’s clothes were gone, he had his bed and dresser in the shed, so all he had to wear were the boxers he was wearing when the fire started.

After the fire was out and people were leaving, the fire captain/chief lifted the lid on the grill and said, “I guess your chicken is done.” Our closest neighbors the Johnson’s invited us over for dinner, they were having a barbecue too, but none of us were very hungry. When it started getting dark, and without electricity when the sun goes down, and there’s no moon, it gets dark, Randy wanted Keri and I to go to Lynne and John’s (Randy’s sister and brother-in-law) to spend the night. I don’t really remember how we were when we got to their house, maybe Lynne and John can comment about that, nor do I know why Randy wanted us to leave. The next morning we went back and started the process of cleaning up. Lynne and John came over to help us look through the rubble for anything salvageable. I remember how excited Lynne and I were when we found my Blue Willow china that Pat, Randy’s mom had given us as a wedding present, the dishes had been re-packed in their original box and had been tucked into the crevice of Keri’s vanity. It had been Randy’s older sister Chris’ then Lynne’s, then Chris’ daughter Tasha’s and finally Keri’s; the vanity was just a blackened shell around the box, which saved my dishes. I gave up early on in the search, it was just too painful, I would see the edge of something and think it had survived but when I’d dig a little it would be ruined and beyond repair. Some weird things, like the antique singer sewing machine that was melted/welded onto the washing machine, and all of Keri’s Barbie’s, somehow all their heads were melted together into one big monster Barbie head, with hair and it was really creepy looking.

But Keri and Brian searched through all the debris being encouraged by finding little things like a small blown glass penguin, completely in tact. Another treasure saved was all our record albums, they were in my mom’s cedar chest, which was severely charred, but had protected the albums. During the rest of that year Randy and Brian spent a good many days, working in secret, on the cedar chest and presented it to me for Christmas. We still have some the things the kids found, they are stored in a couple of boxes, and someday I’ll go through them. Just recently we went and found the negatives that at the time we salvaged them were melted together and dripping wet. But after sixteen years in the extremely dry climate in Pinon Hills we were able to get them apart and use our scanner to reproduce some of our pictures! John our brother-in-law told me that when he drove up the day after the fire, that it looked like a library had burned down; there were pages and pages just strewn all over the place, we still find parts of pages when we’re walking around on the property. We had over 20 boxes of books. We lost most of the books, interestingly ALL of our Bibles, and biblical books survived! He also told me that as he rounded the corner that day and our property came into view, he saw me sitting in the middle of the blackened heap, and he wasn’t sure if I might not have gone around a corner in my mind. There is another blessing, although I am at times melancholy about losing our memorabilia and seemingly out of the blue, I will think of some thing that we had, especially while I’m antique browsing, and the memory of it will sort of break my heart, but God really did and continues to this day to guard my heart and protect it from bitterness and sorrow.

We also saw and experienced the goodness of our neighbors and family. The next day a local pastor came by to see what if anything his congregation could do to help. Many of our friends and family gave us clothing and household goods, and moral support, and really all that continues to this day. But, I think that now they give stuff to me because people really do hate to just get rid of stuff and everyone knows I will NOT refuse anything. You just never know what or when you might need something for yourself or somebody. Losing everything in the fire has also fueled my tendency to be a bit of a pack rat, I think Cynthia (daughter-in-law) would say that, a bit, is an understatement. Randy is always reminding me that if I don’t stop receiving and start getting rid of things, that I might well be on my way to having our house look like the apartment in the movie “Conspiracy Theory”, the one where the character Jerry lives in. As a matter of fact Randy calls me Jerry sometimes, generally he does that because I tend to be a conspiracy theorist at heart, but that’s another story…