Tubbs survivor stayed on to defend his new home from the Kincade fire

As he told of taking on the end of the world early Sunday at the hillside house he’s building near Windsor, Robert Payne interrupted himself to urge that no one emulate him.

“We don’t want to encourage people to do what I’m doing,” Payne, 50, said alongside his home-in-progress just east of Highway 101 and north of Arata Lane.

He believes he was extraordinarily well prepared to take a stand against the Kincade fire and protect the house he is building to replace his previous home. It was a bit north of Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park, and it burned two years ago in the Tubbs fire.

He has framed and outfitted the new house with exterior walls, but not yet an interior or windows. “It’s my everything,” Payne said.

He seems clearly aware of the wisdom of evacuating when authorities deem a neighborhood to be in peril. However, he said, he prepared at great length to defend his place from a potential disaster like the one that arrived abruptly Sunday.

“I’ve got 6,000 gallons of water at my disposal,” Payne said, pointing toward two large, plastic tanks behind his construction site. To move the water quickly, he has a solar-powered pump.

As he spoke, he wore a respirator, a tight-fitting device that when strapped over the nose and mouth protect the wearer from contaminated air far better than a face mask would.

“If you didn’t have a respirator,” Payne said, “what I did last night, you couldn’t do.”

He sleeps in a travel trailer that he has parked on his 1.25-acre parcel. But, he said, he slept very little Saturday night.

When the wind kicked on early Sunday morning, it was as though someone had flipped a switch. At once, grass was afire in a neighbor’s horse corral just yards away from his house project. A finger of the Kincade fire had arrived, and with a vengeance.

“It was Armageddon,” Payne said.

He ran for the hose connected to his stored water. He was dousing flames when a fire crew arrived and helped to neutralize the threat.

Payne will never know for sure, but he believes that had he not been there on the property, and prepared as well as he was, his unfinished - and uninsured - home would have fallen to the Kincade fire.

“I stayed to stop it, man,” he said. “I had to.”

Payne felt he needed to say, yet again, that he doesn’t believe it would be smart nor safe for others in the same position to stay and defend their property.

He knows, too, that the threat may have moved on toward Windsor on Sunday, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone for good.

“I’m still not sleeping tonight.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.