“Could you see the fire from my house?”
“I could see the fire from my house, it was like 11 o'clock in the afternoon, that is what I remember. And I stepped outside and saw the plume, which was still an Ashland, and the wind was blowing directly at us.”
“Where did you evacuate to?”
“Well, the first thing we did was we got our neighbors ready with their animals. And then, I ran into town, helped a couple of families get out, came back, and then us and four other families left and went up toward Wagner Butte. We stayed at a friend's house up there and watched the fire.”
“Did you ever go back to the area of the fire?”
“Yes, I went back three different times during the night to get animals, and get stuff out of our house, because when we first left, we didn't grab anything, so we came back to get work computers, and money things, along those lines. On the last time down, me and our neighbor were doing five-gallon buckets of water around his house, which saved his house, and in turn saved our house.”
“What did you do on the day of the fire?”
“Well, we left our house and came back a couple times to get everything, but mainly we were at our friend's house up Wagner Creek Road, just trying to stay safe family-wise.”
“Did you or your family or friends get affected by the fire?”
“Of course. You know, we were lucky that our house was still there. You know, half of our street was burnt to the ground, and so it affected our street greatly. And then of course, just the whole town itself. I mean, just going for a drive to the grocery store every day has affected me in a big way because I look at all the burnt buildings, which reminds me of the fire, for sure. So, I think it's affected me in that way. And then another example would be when they're doing controlled burns up on the hills around Talent, it definitely brings some fear back into me of the fire, for sure. The other crazy thing is when it is blowing really hard, consistently, it definitely brings back all those fears of the fire too, even though there's no fire, but it definitely reminds me of that day.”
“On the day of the fire what did you feel?”
“On the day of the fire I was just in the mode of protecting everybody around me: friends, family, animals, and neighbors. I felt a major push to make sure that everybody was taken care of. And then of course, you know, there's definitely fear of what's happening. Although I never felt like we were going to be fully in danger, even though we were, I kind of just took over as the leader.”
“On the days following the fire, did you feel like any of the fires surrounding us would encroach on the valley?”
“Yeah, there was some fear of that, but I felt like we woke up the next day. It was clear as a bell, or maybe that was the day after, but you couldn't see a puff of smoke in Talent. And so, no, from that point on, I was wary, but I wasn't overly worried that fire was coming back to us from Central Point, or any of those areas, but was it a possibility? Sure, yes.”
Okay, thank you for your time, Kevin. You’re welcome, Kelani, have a great day.
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