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WINDSOR — It’s too soon to process: The helplessness then. The redemption now.
Sonoma County firefighters, the ones who call this place home, still were on guard Wednesday, mopping up hot spots from the ferocious Kincade Fire.
But when a few allowed themselves to sit for just a moment in county Fire Station No. 1 — a quarter mile from their heroic firefight that saved a neighborhood of 500 homes and stopped the blaze from jumping Highway 101 farther north — emotions were raw, tears were quick to come.
The weight of the Tubbs Fire two years ago, which wiped out whole subdivisions, killed dozens of people and left a gnawing sense of guilt, was finally lifting.
“Sorry. Give me a minute,” said Battalion Chief Mark Dunn, who grew up here and held his bachelor party in the Larkfield neighborhood that was decimated in 2017. “We all took this very personally.”
The Tubbs Fire was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event, so quick, so out-of-control, so deadly that firefighters couldn’t even fight the fire. Instead, they were desperately trying to save lives.
“We’re supposed to be there when people are at their worst. We’re supposed to be able to fix it,” said Battalion Chief and fire marshall Cyndi Foreman, who pounded on doors to wake people up and get them out two years ago. “We’re supposed to be able to save them and we couldn’t. We couldn’t get to them.”
Surely, she thought, the same thing couldn’t happen again.
After all, people who lost their homes in Larkfield-Wikiup, Fountaingrove and Coffey Park were still rebuilding. Forests of trees were still blackened in the Mark West Springs canyon. But on Friday night, the Kincade Fire appeared on their doorstep amid red flag warnings, winds predicted to blow at 80 mph, and the air so dry it chapped the lips.
“Impending doom,” Foreman said. “That’s what I felt.”
This time, when the fire came, they were as ready as they could be. Healdsburg, Geyserville, Windsor and northern Santa Rosa had been evacuated. Mutual aid from fire stations across California was in place.
When flames ignited the hills outside of Geyserville the night of Oct. 23, scores of firefighting agencies went to work. And when it made a run south to Windsor’s Foothill neighborhood, the Sonoma County crews stationed north of town knew there was only one place they could be.
“I told my supervisor, when this fire hits our community, I’m leaving,” said Battalion Chief Mike Elson. “It’s our town. It’s our area. And I’ll be damned to let it burn down again.”
At the same time, Battalion Chief Dunn was setting up a command post on the edge of Highway 101 just north of Windsor. In 2017, the Tubbs Fire had done the unthinkable, crossing the interstate and incinerating the subdivision of Coffey Park. To Dunn — who had been a firefighter in 2017 and now was in strategic command — stopping it at the freeway was stopping it from racing all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
“If it gets across 101, we’ll lose control and we’re back where we were two years ago,” Dunn said. “If it fails, it’s on my back.”
Meanwhile, Elson and his crew were racing into the Foothill neighborhood with its well-tended, two-story homes. Smoke was so thick, firefighters could barely breathe or see each other as trucks rolled in. Embers were flying into yards backing up to Foothill Regional Park, igniting lawns, shrubs, fences and gates. In minutes, more than 50 fire engines were mounting a defense of 10 blocks.
Foreman and Sonoma County Fire Chief Mark Heine jumped in a service truck and headed to Vinecrest Road, then to the cul de sacs of Montez, Flamenco and Valle Vista courts. About 50 homes were threatened, and if they went, he said, the rest of the neighborhood would, too.
Foreman ran into yards, picking up flammable wooden chairs and cushions and hurling them away to protect houses. Heine, who isn’t supposed to be fighting fires anymore, grabbed garden hoses and started dousing.
“I saw smoke and fire in every single yard of every single house — front yard, back yard, gazebos, hot tubs,” he said. “I did what I needed to do. That firefight was probably the most intense firefight of my 35 years.”
In the midst of it, Roberto Pardo, who had evacuated with his family to Napa, was monitoring his security camera on Miramar Court, activated anytime a fire truck came into view. The images were black and white and grainy. But he saw the engines pulling up and crews getting out and opening his gate.
“We knew the fire was in our backyard,” he said Wednesday as he returned home. Several of his family members lost their homes in 2017, including in Coffey Park. He knew what it would mean to lose his.
That night, he broke down in tears in front of his daughter. “I told my daughter, I’ve been trying to be strong for you guys, but I have to cry,” he said. “I have to let it go.”
When he looked at the video again, he stopped. “The firefighters stood in a line in the court facing away — they were facing the fire,” he said.
Pardo kept watching the news and Facebook feeds to find out what had been lost and what had been saved, and checking his security camera. On Monday night, with crews still patrolling the neighborhood, he caught something else: a firefighter dropping an air mattress on his front lawn and lying down.
“I said to my wife, look what these guys are doing. They’re fighting for hours and they decide this is where they would rest,” he said, tears welling up. “I just wished I could have been here to offer them a meal, to bring them in from the cold.”
He took a deep breath. “It gets to you.”
When it was over, every home in the Foothill neighborhood was saved and the fire to the north was stopped within 1,000 feet of Highway 101.
Wednesday afternoon, Pardo and his 17-year-old daughter, Brianna, walked over to Valle Vista to thank the fire crews who were gathering. He didn’t know whether any of them were the ones on his security camera, but it didn’t matter. They all had saved his home and his neighborhood.
“We did what we could,” said firefighter Manny Gomez, who had been a volunteer in 2017 and made his stand this time in Pardo’s neighborhood. “Just knowing we were able to protect our community, it just feels like — redemption.”
