Violet: Okay, this is Violet interviewing Kristan and Zoё about the Almeda Fire. Okay, so what time did you first know that there was a fire?
Zoё: Around lunch time, like 12:00, maybe 11:40.
Violet: So where did you guys first evacuate to?
Kristan: Zoё was in Ashland and I was home, here in your neighborhood and on Autumn Ridge. She was at school in Ashland, so when I got the alert, I immediately went to Zoe's school. She's going to school pod and we chose to evacuate all of the students because later we learned they were only two hundred yards from the fire. They didn't know. That was really scary, so we evacuated all the students. Then where did we go?
Zoё: Well, we were originally planning to go to Zoe's to get some ice cream but they were closed apparently. So, me and my mom went to the Dance Space on Hersey.
Kristan: Because a friend of mine. I work there, but a friend of mine who's there also lived in Phoenix. She couldn't get home and we couldn't get home because the traffic was horrible so we just decided to stay in town. We met her there and just waited it out until we can move again.
Violet: What were the first things that went through your guys' minds when you first knew there was a fire?
Kristan: First thing that went through my mind was: I need to get Zoё immediately because I was really scared because of how bad the wind was that the fire would go towards her school. So, my fear was immediately “go get her and her friends!” Then, after we were safe, you know, we were all waiting for the parents to pick up the kids. Well, that's when we realized we should probably call my husband, her dad, and my son who are still home and say, “you better start packing the car, it looks really bad.”
Zoё: Our teacher told us that it was just a fallen tree. So, I was like, “okay,” when all the fire trucks went by our school…
Kristan: She didn't know what the emergency was. She just knew something was happening.
Zoё: Yeah, oh! it's a fire now. So, then we evacuated.
Kristan: What was your question again? I forgot.
Violet: What were the first things that went through your mind?
Zoё: I don't remember
Kristan: What were the first things that went through your mind after we got to the dance studio? We started listening to the scanner. I remember you definitely started having feelings then, you remember those feelings?
Zoё: Anxious
Kristan: Anxious. What else? There were other things you were telling me. I can tell if you don't remember.
Zoё: I don’t remember
Kristan: You were very afraid! You were actually really scared of losing the house and at that time I said, well, it's not definitely going to take our house. We don't know that, so we don't necessarily want to worry about that but she was very upset. To the point actually, she was crying in the car, upset and that was hard. Wasn't it? But you did a really cool thing to help process some of it. Do you remember?
Zoё: I drew a picture of a lady with fire hair while I was at Dance Works and then I got bored.
Kristan: Yeah, we were there a long time. We were there from about 12:30 or 12:45 until about 5:30. Waiting until I saw that I 5 was open and my husband and son actually did evacuate. They drove to Medford to get out of here, so then they ended up being at a friend's house but we wanted to go meet up with them. We ended up finally being able to drive on I-5, which was crazy because there was actually still lots of fire happening on the freeway. We saw lots of buildings on fire. We saw this all up in smoke and we just didn't know. I said it doesn't look very good but we don't know, we still don't know. I'm an optimist.
Violet: Do you have any pets and if you do were you able to take them with you?
Zoё: Yes, we do have pets. We have two dogs, a rabbit and I'm pretty sure that's it.
Kristan: We had two cats
Zoё: Oh yeah, that's right We also had two cats We brought the bunny and the two dogs but the cats they didn't like staying in a cage or something. Yeah, they also weren't just there, so we just left them there.
Kristan: Do you want to know what happened or is that enough?
Violet: Sure.
Kristan: We had two cats and within a few days after the fire, somebody, actually your neighbor across the street here. Our first cat, Andy, we had him 16 years, he showed up on our back porch. He was actually very badly burned. He didn't really have any wounds but he was a really long-haired cat and he had hardly any hair left. So, the good news is that he didn't have a lot of open sores except maybe one on his foot but he had been through a lot of trauma for sure. They found him and took him immediately to the Animal Hospital. He got immediate, really good care. The other really cool thing was there were a lot of people donating to that hospital for these animals and for the families. They never charged us anything for all of his hospital care, which was such a sweet gift. So, we ended up getting connected and went to see him. It was such a gift to see him because he, actually, was so happy to see us. He purred the loudest I've ever heard him purr and he was okay but because he was so old, and there's other damage we don't know about like their lungs can get really damaged. So, the doctor actually suggested we just let him go and we did. It was probably the best choice we made because we didn't want him to suffer. We had a second cat that adopted us nine years ago. No joke, we kept trying to get rid of him and he wouldn't go away. So, we just finally decided to feed him because he was eating our other cat's food. We put a bed out, we gave him food and he would just come around but he would never snuggle or hang out with us. Then he was spotted, somebody saw him, another neighbor saw him. They started trying to feed him, trap him and cage him. It took them six weeks to catch him. He was really smart. He would get the food and he would get trapped. Then he would get out of the trap, like three times, so they finally caught him. I came and camped out there, not overnight but I came and sat out there. It was the end of October and it was freezing and dark. You know, nothing was cleared yet. We were sitting out there in the dark and there were like raccoons but I was determined to help get this cat. So, we finally caught him and brought him home to our temporary home in Ashland. Then he was the sweetest, most cuddly cat I've ever met. He completely changed and it was the most amazing thing. We had him inside for three weeks because you're supposed to keep them inside for so long, so they don't run away, and he disappeared. We did the three weeks, he was fine, he would go out and come back and then finally, one day he didn't come back. So, I don't know what happened to him.
\Sara (Violet’s mom): And you haven't seen him since?
Kristan: We haven't seen him since. That was a lot of animal information.
Violet: How long was it before you found a more permanent place to stay?
Kristan: We got so lucky. We were the luckiest people, I think, I can ever imagine. Do you want to tell the story or do you want me to?
Zoё: Well, I was somewhere else, so I don't know much of it.
Kristan: Oh, you were at school, you went right back to school. Just to be normal, like, you wanted to go back to school. A friend's family, the day we told them we lost the house, which was actually the next morning. Immediately, they said, okay, we're going to send you some houses for rent. You need to pick one and we're going to help you get it. So, that we could get something right away. They found one that I really, really loved, we all really loved. It was managed by a property management company and their office was in Phoenix. They weren't in their office because the fire was in Phoenix but they didn't lose the office. I found out who owned the company and I found out a friend of mine is friends with that owner. I texted him, called him personally, and he showed us the place the next day. He showed us the house on Wednesday the fire was Tuesday. They showed us the house on Wednesday and gave us the keys on Friday. So, three days. I know we were very, very, very lucky. We felt so incredibly lucky.
Violet: Did you have time to pack and if you did what were you able to pack?
Zoё: Mom said there was news on Monday night that it was windy, so there might be some fire. So, pack some stuff. I'm the only one who packed that day.
Kristan: Monday night you packed?
Zoё: Yes. I packed a few clothes, some stuffies, some books that I loved, my art stuff, toiletries, basically all that stuff. Then in the morning when my mom was at work, when she was working at home, while I was at school, she packed then. Right before she came to get me and then Dad and Ash packed when the fire was happening. My dad packed all of the stuff in the car.
Kristan: So, my version, my perspective was exactly what Zoё said. She got ready and I had told her to do it but I didn't do it. The next morning, after I got off a work meeting, I said oh gosh, I better do what I told Zoё and just go pack something. I actually, to be honest, had a really, really bad feeling that day. It was really weird. I had never felt like that. I just had this feeling that something really bad was going to happen. And not necessarily to us but just something didn't feel right. So, I went ahead and packed, and we always get those warnings like the level 1 evacuation warnings And so I was like, whatever, and Zoё was like, we need to pack! So, I finally was like okay, I agree, Zoё’s right. So, I did the same. I packed very little. I packed my two favorite pairs of shoes a couple of warm clothes, cold clothes and some toiletries and that's it. I honestly didn't think I was going to need anything else. The good news is, I did pack my laptop stuff, like some computer stuff and my hard drives the night before. Just threw them in a little bag but it wasn't like I was packing them up, I was just collecting them. The good news there is when my husband and my son were packing, they grabbed that stuff. They grabbed the bags that we had packed and my son saw my camera. I'm a photographer, so he grabbed my camera. My husband's a videographer, so he grabbed all his hard drives and really important computer and camera equipment that he has and his computer. Honestly, I didn't remember anything else for them to grab. I was really sad that they didn't grab that I didn't tell them to grab the paintings because you can't replace paintings and photos. I can't replace those and so those are the things that make me sad that I didn't pack. That might have been your next question, sorry.
Violet: Did you have to work earlier that day?
Kristan: Was I at work? So, I had taken her to school. She was already at school and I worked at home at the time because of covid. I was on a work call until about 10:30 and I never answered the first question but 10:30 was when I went to pack on my stuff. Then I got a text message saying there was a fire at around 11:30, I think. I only had about an hour before I realized I had to go. So, I was at work that day, yes.
Violet: Is there going to be any changes to the new home as opposed to the old one?
Kristan: You wanna share that?
Zoё: Yes, there is going to be a lot of changes. We don't have the old layout of our house so…
Kristan: They didn't have our house plans.
Zoё: Yeah, so I forgot what I was going to say.
Kristan: Something about our old house compared to our new house?
Zoё: No, we're not going to have the same house. It's going to be two storied instead of one story like last time. It's going to be a lot bigger; I mean, I wouldn't say a lot but counting the second story, yeah it's going to be newer, obviously, nicer.
Kristan: Is that a good answer for you?
Violet: Yeah, so when did you find out that your house was gone?
Zoё: Pretty much the next morning
Kristan: You did. Well, take me to the next morning.
Zoё: I remember something. So, my dad went out, pretty much that night, around three in the morning. My dad went out to go check on the house and he said the house was gone.
Kristan: Yeah, he couldn't sleep and he just wanted to know. He drove over here while things were still on fire and saw that the house was gone. He didn't wake any of us, he let us sleep and then he told us in the morning
Violet: Okay this is the last question I have for now. Did you lose anything that you regret not packing, things you really miss that was in your old house?
Zoё: Not that much. Just some books that I liked, some drawings and like yeah.
Kristan: I was really surprised that you didn't miss anything. She just told me that she had too much. Yeah, had too much stuff. I did answer this already but I'll answer it again, which fits with your question. I just really miss that we didn't grab the photographs and the paintings and my jewelry. Actually, I didn't answer that before. We actually found my wedding ring. I wasn't wearing it and they found it, this little thing. It was all intact, so I can still wear it. I know it still has glass melted into it and a little burn mark. It's kind of cool, it's kind of special to wear now.
Violet: It looks like we got through all the questions. So, thank you guys for doing this with me. Thanks for sharing your story.
Kristan: Thanks for asking us Violet it's a very special presentation we appreciate it.
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