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https://www.facebook.com/KZYXMendocino/posts/10153944618582289

KZYX&Z - Mendocino County Public Broadcasting
23 mins ·
The Valley Fire is now 40,000 acres, and has burned homes, businesses, apartments and churches in Cobb, Hidden Valley and Middletown. Mandatory evacuations still in place. See twitter feed @newslorraine for more information.
From a conversation with 63 year old winery worker Tim Barnett of Hidden Valley Lake, about his harrowing escape yesterday. This is the entire transcript of our interview, which occured late last night.
TIM BARNETT, HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE RESIDENT
I got a call that there was a fire up on Cobb, which is quite a ways away from me. And so I went out on my deck which faces that direction. I see the smoke and I sat there talking to the neighbors, they were looking. Pretty quick, through the smoke you’re seeing flames, and then the flames just started running down the mountain. Not just in one half, but the whole mountain looked like it was on fire at one point. And then it came across the valley and it jumped into Hidden Valley. And within a short period of time you could see homes were on fire and explosions from propane tanks, and probably cars exploding, their fuel tanks and stuff like that too. I’m told the gas station outside of Hidden Valley exploded. Their propane tank exploded down there.
I tried to get out of Hidden Valley. Everybody else had the road blocked. I didn’t realize there were so many cars in Hidden Valley. And we were just stuck and the fire was coming so I turned around and went out through the back. And I got trapped, with about 20 other vehicles in a back road trying to get out. And we went to a friend’s who had a swimming pool. I thought worse comes to worse we’ll jump in the swimming pool. And then someone said they thought the road was open, so I went and checked and took out a bunch of people there with me. And we stayed at the Harvesters Market waiting for help to arrive from the fire department and the sheriff. They came down and told us we had to leave there and head up to Kelseyville.
As we were leaving it was just amazing, driving through the road. The telephone poles were down, the power lines were down. Just, the devastation. I mean you could see houses that were two or three story houses completely engulfed in flames.
I don’t know how they could figure the acreage on this right now. But it’s moving like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Q. Isn’t Hidden Valley 5 or 6,000 people?
At least, yes.
Q. So how quick did people have to get out?
There were people I talked to said when they realized they we were in trouble they didn’t have time to grab anything they had to run. I grabbed some important stuff. Some tools and things I knew I needed to work. And some clothes, my computer, my phone, threw them into the truck and I was gone. I left everything else there. Pictures of the kids I grabbed I couldn’t replace.
Q. Your house is OK you think?
Well I did sneak in before the sheriff got there and I got a peek at it. And it looked good. There was still fire burning around it, but it looked like the worst of the fire had gone through. So unless something really weird happens and it comes back for another reason, but I think it’s going to leave my house alone. And most of the people on my street.
q. How much of Hidden Valley is impacted do you think?
Probably 75% of it. The hills above me were all burned up. The whole valley below me was on fire when I left. When I left my house. And then as I left with the police department the hills all above me and all around me were on fire. The subdivision behind us called Rim Rock – they were trying to get a bunch of people out of there when I talked to the fire department.
Q. This is absolutely devasting. Almost hard to believe it was moving so fast and impacting so many people.
I was in the car. I was by myself. And you see all these other cars and all these frantic people. And when I turned around, and all I could think about is this is like something out of a movie, this can’t be real. And it reminded you of something like the movie Earthquake or something where there’s this huge devastation and people are just lined up and they don’t know where to go and what to do.
Q. Were you leading people out in vehicles.
It was amazing. There were a lot of women who had horses, that they were trying to get their horses out. By themselves. And these poor gals were just frantic. Didn’t know what to do. So we kinda just gathered everybody together. I went and made a check first that I could get through and literally had to drive through fire, smoke and brush to get out of there. And I went back and got everybody and they followed me out.
Q. Did you go out through 3 walls of fire.
I went out through a wall of fire. And then I went back through it again to go get everybody and came out one more time. It was frightening. Everytime it was frightening.
Q. What made you go through that?
My thought was for everybody else. There’s these 4 women behind me and I thought Lord please don’t let them stop in the middle of this. We had to keep going. And they all did. They did a great job. They got their animals out. They got themselves out. And they did a good job with their vehicles. It’s amazing.
Q. Wow... wow... so probably most everybody is evacuated out of Hidden Valley.
I think, well... everybody’s out now. And the sheriff was running through making sure everything was cleared and emptied out, and they’re evacuating the areas in Rimrock, trying to get everybody out.
Q. Can you describe the community of Hidden Valley Lake?
Hidden Valley is beautiful. It’s very rugged terrain. It’s a beautiful golf course. I don’t even golf. But I love living there. The people are most of them hard working. Some of them are retired and are kind and nice people. We’ve got an abundance of animal life. I usually have deer off my deck every night. In fact recently we’ve had a couple of raccons come around and a fox. That will probably all change now.
Q. Did you see any wildlife doing anything while you were trying to get out?
I saw some animals running around. They didn’t know which way to go. When I was leaving I went through the stables. There’s a road through the back. And there’s a woman there trying to get her horses out. And I stopped to help her for a minute. And I said get on and get out of here. I told her go the other way and she wouldn’t. She went back into Hidden Valley. I don’t know if she made it or not. I thought it was crazy. She went back toward the fire. With the horses, so I’m praying that she got out.
Q. You’re safe in Kelseyville now.
We’re all safe and sound. And see what happens tomorrow. And how long it takes the Red Cross and PG&E and everybody to get power back up to our places.
Q. How far is Cobb
30 minute drive
Q. As the crow flies, maybe about 5 miles?
Probably at least. And it didn’t take any more than an hour for that to get there. And from what I understand it took everything off of Cobb.
Q. Was it windy
Yes, the wind came up this afternoon. A really strong hard wind, like I’d never felt before. And then it seemed to keep changing directions. It was all going directions at once. It was very crazy.
Q. Anything else that struck you that you want to share?
I think I’ve told you about everything.
Q. You’re really a hero. That was really amazing that you were able to help so many people.
I’m not a hero. There’s other people there and they needed help and it’s a whole lot easier when you’re going through somewhere to focus on others then on yourself. I appreciate the sentiment though.
Q. How old are you? And do you have a profession you want to name?
I’m 63 and I work in the wine industry for people in the Napa and the St. Heleena Valley.
Q. Up in Anderson Valley it’s early harvest. What’s the state of the wineries and the harvest around where this fire is?
We really started the harvest way early this year. But everything looks really good. It looks like we’re going to have a good crop and great wine.
Q. You’ve already started harvesting?
We’re about ½ way through. We’ve been harvesting for a few weeks.
Q. That’s probably a good thing because of all the smoke and everything, might impact stuff, huh?
Well it would ruin, yeah, the guys I work for down in the Napa Valley we haven’t had any smoke down there or anything to worry about. A lot of the grapes up here have been destroyed by the fire because of the smoke. The grapes absorb that smoke scent right through the skin. I did see the vineyards below me by Hidden Valley that were absolutely on fire. You could see the rows of them on fire when I was leaving.
Q. You have a lot of vineyards there?
Yeah, there’s many, many, many, many acres of vineyards by us. .. so one of the most incredible scary things I’ve ever dealt with in my entire life.