SANTA ROSA, Calif.
— The warnings about http://www.authenticsteelerssales.com/joe-greene-jersey-c-1_12.html impending doom came suddenly and in different ways. Frantic pounding on doors. Blaring fire alarms. Commotion outside windows.Awakened from a deep slumber in the dead of night, bleary-eyed residents of the Coffey Park neighborhood peeked outside and saw hell: burning debris raining down, smoke so thick it was hard to see or breathe and an encroaching wall of flame.
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From a distance you could just see red. And hear nothing but explosions,” said Dan Hageman, a 49-year-old construction worker. Hageman quickly sprayed down his house and yard, then fled with this wife. His home was one of the few that survived.Coffey Park, a square mile of middle-class homes and friendly neighbors on the northern edge of Santa Rosa, was among the hardest hit areas from the series of wildfires that broke out Oct. 8 in Northern California. Dozens died, and thousands of homes were destroyed, 2,800 alone from the Tubbs Fire that scorched Santa Rosa.
Fueled by fierce winds, the flames chewed up hillsides, jumped over a six-lane highway and sent thousands fleeing for their lives. Many had nothing but the clothes they wore, leaving behind all their possessions and a lifetime of mementos.
At least two of the dead were killed in Coffey Park
— a number that could rise once authorities sift through ash to see if there are bone fragments, teeth, medical devices or anything else that could identify human remains.According to survivors, the fire hit Coffey Park when flaming embers blew across U.S. Highway 101 and ignited the businesses and homes around Hopper Avenue. From there, it jumped from house to house.
When Andrew Ziegler, 46, saw flames outside windows, he scrambled to gather his 8-month-old dog while praying the power would stay on long enough for him to raise the garage door.
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I had a puppy that wouldn’t listen and I’m in a wheelchair,” Ziegler said. “I figured the best thing to do was not be a burden on someone else, get the hell out of here.”Several blocks away, Wayne Sims was becoming an amateur firefighter in a harrowing fight that saved his home.
Awakened by smoke, the 62-year-old stepped
http://www.divasta.com/jeremy-lane-jersey-c-1_55.html outside to investigate. His neighbor across the street jumped in his car and came back to report that the fire had jumped the freeway. Sims sent his wife and cat away and did his best to spray down the home with a garden hose.
Down the street, he spotted a CalFire crew spraying water on a blazing home.
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I said: ‘You guys gotta come over here. That one’s gone. You can save my house. Come and save my house,’ ” Sims said. “I was begging them. And they did. They came down here.”Sims convinced the firefighters to give him their hose, so he sprayed down his own home and his neighbor
’s — using the water pressure to knock down his flaming back fence so he’d have a way to escape — while the pros moved down the street. They saved much of the cul de sac.
