Toby Wait and his family have prepared to flee a number of wildfires that have burned through the rugged and dry mountains of Central California. But none were as ferocious or fast-moving as what the long-time residents of Big Creek faced this week when flames overwhelmed their community, forcing them to flee in the middle of the night and reduced their home to ashes.
Wait, the superintendent of Big Creek School District and principal of Big Creek Elementary School, noticed a plume of smoke in the distance Friday but wasn’t too worried, packing up a few belongings just in case they might need to leave. He figured that even if his family were to be evacuated, they would be able to return in a few days.
But at 4 a.m. Saturday, he and his family were forced to flee when firefighters came to their door and told them to get out.
“I went on my deck and looked out, and there was just orange flowing throughout the hills,” he recalled to CNN. Wait, his wife, three children, and three dogs quickly packed into their cars and made a harrowing escape down the mountain to safety.
“The irony is my daughter’s had her license for six months and has been wanting to drive up that route, and we’ve said ‘no, no, no, you’re not going to do that.’ But here I am, 4:30 in the morning with a fire nipping our heels – it’s indescribable, it’s pitch dark outside, power is shut off, smokey, sirens. I was more fearful for my daughter than the fire at that point,” he says of the terrifying trek. “It’s something you hope you never have to experience again.”
Wait and his family found out later that day their home had been destroyed by the fire, and that they were just one of many in the community who had suffered the same fate. “This fire has taken a life of its own,” he says. “This is a devastating fire.”
Their home is just one of dozens lost to the Creek Fire, which has scorched more than 160,000 acres and continues to burn out of control.
The family is now staying with Wait’s parents in the Central Valley city of Hanford, alternating between there and homes of other family members in Fresno.
“We’ve taken refuge here. We’re nomads right now,” he said. “We’ve got our duffle bags and when we wear out our welcome, we move on to the next house.”
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On Sunday, as word got out of the fire’s devastating toll, he started receiving messages from friends in other communities, saying, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said. But by Tuesday, he said he was “calling them, saying, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ They had no idea their houses would be lost as well, but that’s just how far it has stretched – over 60 miles.”
Wait grew up around the Fresno area, but his father and his grandfather before him were both longtime residents of Big Creek, a small community nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“My family has been part of this community since 1929 and knowing it’s probably never going to be the same is just gut-wrenching,” he said.
While Wait’s three younger children are with him and his wife, his oldest son is at Lindenwood University in Missouri, and has had to process the news from afar.
“There’s been a family that took him in amid the pandemic, and when they heard about the fire, they let him grieve with them,” he says. “I’ve never met this family, and they’ve just taken my son in like he’s their own child. And as a parent, knowing that as you’ve lost everything, there are these total strangers to us who are providing that parental support, I could get teary-eyed.”
Wait also feels for his 18-year-old daughter who already was forced to forego high school graduation and start at the University of Tennessee as a result of the pandemic. “Now she’s lost everything,” he said. “2020 can’t end soon enough for her. You can’t replace those memories.”
Wait has been told the elementary school in Big Creek suffered fire damage, but is still standing. The school is always prepared for the possibility of wildfires, having cleared all the trees neighboring the campus, but once a fire grows out of control in these mountains, it can be very difficult to battle.
“Our schools are the center of our community, and we need to get them back open,” he says.
Despite their loss, Wait and his family are trying to remain positive and focused on what they still have.
“We are not going to be victims. I am certainly not going to be a victim of this fire. Is it devastating? Absolutely. Is it heartbreaking? You bet,” he continued. “We have our health, we have our pets, and we have faith. We’re going to continue to forge ahead.”
And Wait has hope the community will return when the Creek Fire is finally extinguished.
“We’re going to rebuild this,” he said. “Is it going to be different? Absolutely. But we’re not going to let this be the defining moment of who we are. That’s unacceptable to the people of this mountain community. We’re going to bounce back. We’ll need help and resources and support, so many people have lost everything, but we’re going to rise up from these ashes and rebuild our communities.”
Depsite losing his home in the fire, Wait expressed gratitude for the hundreds of firefighters currently battling the blaze.
“It’s just incredible to see people who are not from there put their lives on the line. Words cannot describe how thankful we are for them. You see the signs about these heroes driving down the road, but until you’ve experienced something like this, you don’t really understand it, and I understand it now,” he says. “These people are truly putting their lives on the line for strangers. That’s just an incredible feeling knowing that we have these men and women who I’ll never meet who are putting their lives on the line to save a house.”
