Clayton fire evacuees, pets find help at Lake County shelters

KELSEYVILLE - Mary Schultz started keeping a box of important documents and treasured photos in her car after a spate of suspicious fires erupted in Lake County last week.

It didn’t make much of a difference Sunday.

The 71-year-old Lower Lake resident barely had time to grab her three cats and escape from the rapidly encroaching flames that consumed her home on Copsey Creek Way.

“I lost everything,” she said Monday, her voice breaking with emotion.

Schultz and more than 4,000 other people were forced to evacuate from Lower Lake and Clearlake over the weekend as the Clayton fire bore down on their homes. Almost 200 sought refuge Sunday night at three emergency shelters in Kelseyville, Middletown and Lakeport to house the evacuees.

Jay Burch, 89, had plenty to worry about before he was ordered to leave his Clearlake-area home of 20 years on Sunday, including his wife, Leona, who has cancer and was scheduled to undergo a regular chemotherapy treatment Monday.

They fled with their four dogs, and Leona Burch is now safe at a local hospital, but her husband is worried about their 20 chickens, which remain trapped in a coop at their home. He hoped he would be allowed to return home quickly to release the birds.

“I’ve got to let them loose. I’d hate to see my chickens burn up,” Jay Burch said Monday as he stood under a pop-up tent behind the Kelseyville High School gym, where he and more than 70 other fire refugees had spent the night with their pets. Some 75 dogs and cats were being kept shaded, fed and watered by volunteers, many of them seasoned by last year’s devastating fires.

The evacuations seem routine for Clearlake resident Diana Bundesen, 62. She evacuated twice last year, once during the Rocky fire and again during the Valley fire. She said she’s tough and can take the stress, including sleeping on a cot in the Kelseyville High School gymnasium. It’s her mother she worries about.

He mom, Veda, is 84 and suffers from myriad ailments, including dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is exacerbated by smoke. She also has trouble walking.

“Right now, she’s really confused,” Bundesen said. “It’s very scary for me. I’m just so afraid for my mom.”

The initial evacuation Sunday evening by city bus was difficult and took hours, Bundesen said. First they were taken to the senior center in Clearlake, but had to be moved to Kelseyville when the electricity went out. She had time only to grab medicine, oxygen tanks and some clothes for her mom.

But things have settled down. Bundesen said the response to the fires appeared to be more organized this year, especially when it comes to caring for the elderly and ailing. A medical supply company arrived early to deliver oxygen and the staff has been very helpful with her mother, Bundesen said.

“I just think they had it more together,” she said.

Lessons learned from the devastating Valley fire last year helped pave the way for a smoother response to the Clayton fire, county and volunteer agency officials said Monday.

“We learned a lot from the Valley fire,” Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin said Monday evening.

Since last year, the county has placed its emergency services office under the auspices of the Sheriff’s Office, tightening coordination between the agencies, and it has implemented a more integrated emergency alert system, including wireless phone alerts, Martin said.

“We knew what to expect both logistically and emotionally from people,” he said.

It’s déjà vu for Deanna Goff and other Kelseyville Unified School District employees who helped feed and house fire evacuees and their pets last year.

When the Valley fire erupted last year, she was at a volleyball game in Healdsburg when she got word of the fire. This year, she was at a volleyball camp at Sonoma State University.

Both times, she rushed back to Lake County and took to social media to help those in need.

“It’s smoother” this year, in part because so many of the people helping have experience, Goff said. Almost immediately, people began arriving with crates, pens and food for the animals. The supplies include pop-up tents to provide shade for the animals and owners who prefer to sleep with them outside on a grassy patch behind the high school gym.

The kitchen staff and their volunteers, many of them teachers, also didn’t think twice before jumping in.

“My crew is experienced. We just get rolling and we do it,” said Michelle Borghesani, the district’s director of food services. It helps that staff has experience feeding 1,400 students, she said. This also is their fourth time in two years feeding fire evacuees. They prepared meals for people evacuated from the Rocky, Jerusalem and Valley fires last year.

They know what to do, but they’ll be needing food donations, including fresh fruit and vegetables to make healthy, well-balanced meals for the refugees.

“They deserve a meal,” Borghesani said.

Monday’s lunch was a feast, including hamburgers, hot dogs, chili, pasta salad, watermelon, tangerines, grapes and plums.

“It’s wonderful,” said Pamela Wynn, of Clearlake.

At the Twin Pines Casino in Middletown, 80 people spent the night Sunday and 12 were at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Lakeport, according to Crystal Silva, a site director for Red Cross.

The shelters were expected to stay open until Friday.