Cache fire victims return to ruins of Clearlake homes

CLEARLAKE — One family lost a home that had been their refuge for three generations.

Blocks away, another resident found her home in ruins but rejoiced in a reunion with one of her cats thought lost to wildfire.

Still another homeowner returned to find her house standing — unscathed by flames but clearly uninhabitable amid the piles of debris and ash generated from the burned homes of her neighbors.

These were some of the stories that emerged Monday off Dam Road as residents on the southern end of Clearlake were allowed back into their neighborhoods for the first time since the Cache fire erupted last Wednesday.

Whipped by 30 mph winds, it raced south from Sixth Avenue to Dam Road, where it barreled into Creekside Mobile Home Park and leveled dozens of units — the majority of the 58 homes lost to the fire in all. At least 100 additional structures, including outbuildings, also were destroyed.

The 83-acre blaze was largely halted within hours last week, but mop up of hot spots continued for days, and full containment wasn’t reached until Sunday, allowing city officials to lift road closures and let the last of 1,600 evacuated residents back in.

They took in a nearly unrecognizable homeland, discolored by ash-covered soil, blackened trees and melted vehicles.

The fire crews that had swarmed these streets since Wednesday were gone. Utility crews were on hand, though in more sparse numbers.

Clearlake resident Laura Russell, 57, surveyed the devastation as she assisted a friend who lost her Creekside home.

“Tragic,” she said. “Everywhere, there are homes that are gone. We didn’t want to see it even though we had to.”

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and city officials have urged those who don’t live in the fire zone to stay away due to hazardous conditions inside the burn zone.

Below are stories of people who returned Monday to see what they lost.

Home to three generations lost

Jaylene Binstock kept a positive outlook as she sifted through the remains of a doublewide mobile home at the Creekside park that three generations of her family owned before it was destroyed.

Binstock, 38, was at work for Door Dash when a customer told her about the fire and she rushed to Lower Lake Elementary School for her 5-year-old daughter, Savanna.

She surmised right away that the blaze had destroyed her home but she found closure Monday morning when authorities allowed people to visit their properties for the first time in days.

“It was meant for me to come and at least get what we can get,” Binstock said.

She searched a heap of charred debris and cinder blocks that used to be her computer room. She found her grandfather’s ashes, contained in a metal box, but had lost other mementos, including her mother’s ashes that were inside an angel-shaped urn.

“Two big boxes of all our ancestry, gone,” Binstock said. “I didn’t get to pick up anything. It was too late.”

Binstock recalled visiting the home since she was 7 years old and spending Thanksgiving and Christmas there on multiple occasions. “Grandpa’s and grandma’s was the place to go,” she said.

The mobile home park, now gutted by fire, was a well-kept community filled with nice homes and friendly neighbors, she said.

Her mother inherited the home after Binstock’s grandparents died, and Binstock acquired it a year ago after her mother died from lung cancer.

She was stoic as she excavated her property but she was overcome with emotion when discussing her two missing cats. Nala, a tabby, often slept with Savanna.

“That little kitty was her favorite,” Binstock said, fighting back tears as she was comforted by a cousin who helped search the property.

A GoFundMe was launched for Binstock and her daughter in order to provide clothes and housing for the pair.

Home is gone, but cat is found

Randy Hall sat in a parked car just outside remnants of his Creekside home of five years. “Everything’s melted, everything’s gone,” he said. “This is all just scrap metal.”

He lamented that he and his roommate could not find their two twin cats, Max and Minnie. Seconds later, his roommate Janine Schreiner, emerged from the ruins and shouted “Great news!”

One of the cats — Max or Minnie — had been found.

The cat was yards away under a wooden patio at a house on property separating Creekside from Cache Creek Mobile Home Park, where around three homes were destroyed by the fire.

Schreiner, ecstatic over the reunion, rushed to a store for water and kitty treats in hopes of luring the cat out. She returned to an opening in the patio, which was pink after being doused by fire retardant. Beneath it, but visible through an opening, was her singed tabby.

Schreiner crouched onto the patio and called to her cat. It consumed water Schreiner placed in a dish but ignored the treats. Schreiner said she was reluctant to pick up the cat in case it was injured.

She wondered if her other cat was nearby. The pair tends to be inseparable. Schreiner called for them as the one in front of her meowed.

She ultimately scooped it up and brought her to a cage provided by a friend. The other cat remained missing, but Schreiner said she’s finding relief in the hope that both may have made it.

“To know that they’re alive, yes. They survived the devastation. I couldn’t take them, I didn’t have time. They’re my babies,” she said.

Schreiner’s brother, Pete Loustalot, has launched a gofundme.com fundraiser for his sister. She and Hill are living in a motel until early next month and he hopes they land on their feet, but that’s not guaranteed.

“Unfortunately, with the hardships that we’ve faced through the pandemic and everything that’s happened, we’ve struggled. … It’s just all around with the pandemic and these fires, it’s been terrible,” Loustalot said.

Home survived, but it’s not safe

At the southern end of the mobile home park is a cluster of homes that survived the blaze and serve as a reminder of the types of buildings that once filled Creekside.

Among them is a property that belongs to Darlene Bowen, 66, who rolled up to her home of four years Monday morning to retrieve property.

She was eager to get in and out as fast as possible, given that she suffers from asthma and local officials announced that the fire left behind environmental hazards, including dust and ash that cover the community.

A roadblock at Dam and Lake Street has been replaced with an electronic warning sign advising people of the risk: “Health and safety hazard area,” it reads, advising visitors to use caution.

“It’s too toxic right now,” Bowen said Monday. Other neighbors also said they felt they were against a clock when trying to recover property.

Bown said the experience has been “devastating” and expressed concern for other Creekside residents who lost their homes. She sighed as she stood on her patio and looked around the neighborhood.

“I just look at my friends I made here and they’re all gone. It’s all gone,” she said.

Her home suffered smoke damage that discouraged her from letting anyone inside. It also made it hard to breathe, Bowen said.

But even worse, it appeared someone rummaged through a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, even going so far as to relieve themselves in the toilet, she said.

“It looks like someone’s already been in there looting,” Bowen said.

They plan to return and inspect the home to make sure if anything was stolen, Bowen said.

Family ashes lost, another fire to blame

Becky Caires’ family members were under an evacuation warning in Hidden Valley when a fire there burned 100 acres near their home on Aug. 13.

As a precaution, they took her parents’ ashes to her home on Dam Road at Wilkinson Avenue, about 10 miles north of the Hidden Valley fire.

On Wednesday, the Cache fire destroyed Caires’ home and, along with it, her parents’ ashes.

“If I just left them (in Hidden Valley), they would’ve been fine. “It’s one of those things — you just keep kicking yourself,” said Caires, 57.

The home was one the few outside of Creekside Mobile Home Park to be destroyed by the blaze. Last week’s fire left it surrounded by burned trees and covered by downed power lines that had been removed by Monday.

Becky Caires moved into the Dam Road home in 1997, but it has belonged to her husband, Cliff Caires, 56, since 1979.

By the time they married, he’d already had three daughters and she had three sons. Together, they had a fourth son.

“We raised our seven children here,” Cliff Caires said.

Several joined Becky and Cliff Monday morning during their attempt to clean up the property and salvage whatever the fire spared.

They recovered silverware that Becky Caires’ mother got at the age of 18 along with a vintage Pepsi bottle opener that was attached to a wall.

“When I find something like that, it runs through your mind when I got it and the memories attached to it,” Becky Caires said as she looked through the silverware.

Lost, however, were hunting rifles, a pickup truck, their youngest son’s Ford Fiesta and numerous other prized belongings.

Even before the family arrived Monday, Becky Caires braced for the visit. Her stomach filled with butterflies during the car ride.

“I wanted to throw up,” she said.

Staff Writer Emily Wilder contributed to this story

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi.