Fleeing fire twice and feeling lucky
FARIA BEACH, Ventura County — Fortunately Gina and Mike Haase have a big car, because they surely needed it to flee the Thomas Fire here with their two French bulldogs, one green macaw and collection of 20 firearms. Not once, but twice. Two evacuations from the same beach house — with what Gina called “my little traveling circus” — within a 19-hour span.
On Wednesday, they evacuated to their fishing boat and stayed up watching the night sky turn orange.
On Thursday, they were allowed home just long enough to unpack the circus, soak the roof with a garden hose, and attend a pizza party celebration with the neighbors before the wind changed its mind.
Then came the cops with their bullhorns, announcing that it was time to flee again.
On Thursday afternoon, for their second evacuation, the Haases had only minutes to gather up and get out. Bright orange flames had roared down from the Transverse Mountains, jumped Highway 101 and threatened to again gobble up Faria Beach.
“It’s been interesting,” Gina, 55, said as she stood at the edge of the Pacific Ocean about a mile north of her home, awaiting her fate for the second time.
“First we loaded everything,” she said. “Then we unloaded everything onto the boat. Then we unloaded the boat, loaded the car, unloaded the car. And then we loaded the car again.”
Black smoke soared into the blue sky. The Santa Ana winds made it dance. The ocean washed onto the sand a few feet away — unlimited water just a little too far out of reach to quench the seemingly unlimited appetite of the fires attacking Southern California.
The Haases, who own an air conditioning business in Oxnard, spent hours gazing at the black smoke shooting up from their town to the south and wondering if it was being fed by the single-story home they have lived in for 17 years.
After about three hours, the police said it was OK for the evacuees to go back to Faria Beach and find out.
The house was still there along with their prized collection of 11 surfboards, this being Southern California.
“We’re counting our blessings,” Gina said. “So many of our friends in Ventura lost everything.”
The Haases said they’re ready to run yet again, if they have to.
“It’s not up to us,” Gina said.