VACAVILLE, Calif. — Mark Helmus, a resident of the English Hills area of Vacaville, was out of town with his wife when the LNU Lightning Complex fires broke out. He said when he received the call from a neighbor about what was happening, he rushed back as quickly as he could.
After leaving his car parked at the checkpoint, Helmus said he and his wife ran four miles to get to his property. When they finally made it, Helmus said he noticed the hills around his home were completely scorched, but his home was still standing. Shortly he also noticed his cat, Otis, was injured in the fire.
“His whiskers were singed like you take fishing lines and it was fused together. He was walking on three legs, he had a burned paw, so he must have had to jump through flames at some point,” explained Helmus
Helmus said, while one of his cats was injured, a second cat, Otis, was missing.
“And as the days have gone by, we were less and less hopeful. I’m up there today and he comes into the garage, goes into the house, and runs under the bed,” Helmus said.
There wasn’t a scratch on Milo the cat as he found his way home of Monday.
Down the street on Cantelow Road, Jose Antonio Romo, his brother, and his son, were loading up hay to feed the cattle that miraculously survived. Romo said he and his family had very little time to evacuate. The next day they came back to find the cattle had broken out of their pen, thanks to the one bull that rammed the gate open.
“Just one bull did that and you can see the fire was not too far away, so he saw the fire and panicked,” said Romo. “They were pretty smart. They walked around and found a bare place and gathered together.”
The house on the property is still standing, but they did lose a barn on the opposite side of the road.
“You can see there is nothing left,” said Romo.
Authorities for the Solano County Emergency Services say evacuation orders for the English Hills area will stay in place for another week.
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