Okay, I'm recording it now.
Perfect.
Hey, first question. What were you doing the day before or the day of the fire?
I was at school. It was on a Wednesday. I was at school working.
What were you working on?
I was doing school teacher stuff. So, planning and paperwork, that type of stuff. I did not have students that day.
Were you evacuated by a state trooper?
No. I was at school and then our boss sent us home about 1:30. We were sent home because nobody knew what was going on but she felt that we all should go home. So, I went home at that point. I had to pick up my son from his driver's ed class at 2:00, and then we left for our house at 3:30, but no one came to tell us to leave.They were too busy.
Did you have all your family with you?
No. At the time we were, well, we didn't really get time to prepare. I had picked up Julius from his driver's ed class and Josie was home, but their dad had gone just about noon. He went to go fight the fires.
What was the first thing you packed before you left?
First thing was animals and birth certificates.
How many animals did you bring?
We could only get three of our four cats and our dog. We turned the irrigation water on to help protect the cows in the field because we could not get them.
What was the first sign you noticed you needed to leave?
I saw flames from my friend step.
Did your house burn down?
No.
Did you go out of Jackson County or did you just, kind of, stay in Medford and the Talent area?
I was able to evacuate to a friend's house that was three and a half miles from our house, but it took almost an hour to get there, due to the traffic.
Have you ever gone through an experience like this before?
Kind of, when I was a kid, I lived in Merlin and there was a big fire on the other side of the five. So, we were all on alert that if it jumped I5, we would have to evacuate. So, a lot of people had stuff in their cars just in case but we never had to evacuate. To this level? No, nothing can compare to it.
Were you worried about any family that you weren't able to bring with you?
Yeah, I was worried about their dad because he was out on it, so I didn't know how safe he was. I hoped he was safe but he's fighting this fire that we don't know anything about. So, I was really worried about their dad the most but everybody else I knew was accounted for.
If your house had burned down in this fire, what do you wish you would have packed?
Pictures.
You don't have them saved?
Yeah, because my kids were born before cell phones. I wish I would've grabbed their baby books and the pictures that I couldn't have been able to replace because that was before the technology we have now.
Seems like it would be a hard thing to go through.
Yeah, or my baby picture. So, all my pictures that aren’t digital.
How many cows do you have that you would have lost?
Two cows. Brian took the truck to go down to the fire station and we didn't even have a trailer. So, we turned the water on hoping that it would keep them safe. Keeping everything wet, kept all that green and wet. It helps with the fire. We had a lot of ash raining and burning on our house and everything. So, it helps with that. I think that's one of the reasons that it survived.
What other preparations did you do before you left?
Hardly any, I did I turn on the irrigation water. I grabbed food. I had just gone shopping the day before, so I grabbed what food I could out of that. Because the power had gone about !:30, I knew we didn't have electricity. I tried to put everything into one freezer that I was hoping would keep cold. So, it wouldn't spoil, not knowing what was going to happen. There wasn't a lot of time to think because we just didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know that it was coming, to that degree. I just tried to do my preparations, like with a power outage. Like, what would you do in a power outage? So, that was the fridges and making sure things were unplugged. I just grabbed bare necessities, not a lot of time to think of what to grab. We got medicines and some paper documents. I made kind of a scrambled first aid box of just of all our toiletry type stuff but I didn't get much. It's kind of crazy when I look back.
Yeah. It seems like a crazy experience for everyone. Even if your house didn't burn down.
We thought that our house did burn down that night because we got a video from Brian that was a video showing the embers. It was just orange embers, like a snowdrift blowing across the road and then raining down on our house. We did not think our house survived, we thought our house was gone but the firefighters worked hard and they saved it. That was amazing!
It seems like an amazing experience but at the same time super nerve wracking.
Totally, a lot of tears, a lot of emotions up and down, up and down.
Thank you for letting me ask you these questions.
You're welcome. I'm excited that you guys are doing that. That's great.
We want to put this as a part of our history because it was a big thing that happened in our area.
It really was. Hopefully, we never have to do it again.
Who knows? Maybe in 20 or 30 years, people will look back and say, this is a crazy experience and listen to all of our stuff.
Right? I think they will, especially with…on top of a pandemic and everything. There's a lot of pieces. So, I'm glad that you guys are doing that.
Well, thank you so much for letting me talk to you.
You're welcome, and you have a great day. I'll see you soon.
Okay. Bye.
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