FELTON, Calif. — On a mountainside near Felton, Calif. smoke and flames explode in thick, inaccessible terrain. On the ground, Cal Fire hand crews clear brush next to a road. The fire, relentless, continues its destructive path, through a thick, wooded forest.
These are the sights on Tuesday afternoon at the CZU Lightning Complex fire.
The fires, burning in parts of Santa Cruz County and San Mateo County, have destroyed over 80,000 acres. The fire is currently 19% contained. Cal Fire reports 537 buildings have been destroyed, while 51 more have been damaged by the fire.
Firefighters have ordered around 77,000 people to evacuate, and while they urge everyone to follow their orders, not everyone has.
“It came up right to here and hit my well,” said Mugs Hammer, who stayed behind despite orders to evacuate. "I got a tractor from next door. I started cutting firebreaks. And then once we kind of secured my place we moved on to the neighbors.”
Just down the road, a similar story. A homeowner, whose home is still standing and didn’t want to be identified, says he saved his own home along with the help from neighbors who saved their homes as well.
Another man, who also did not want to be identified, just finished building his home in the same neighborhood last year. While other homes were destroyed, his home, with a metal, corrugated roof and concrete walls, survived unscathed.
“Yeah, I just sprayed all the spot fires coming up towards people's houses, chainsawed a lot of the dry brush around people’s roofs,” he said.