Family safe after wildfire

Cindee Phillips found herself in an unusual situation.  She had to quickly decide what to pack in her car before she and her family left their home in Escondido, Calif. for what could have been the last time. 

All the while, her daughter, Courtney, a UMHB senior education major, waited to hear from her family of their safety as well as the future of their home.

“I was a nervous wreck,” Courtney Phillips said. “It was just my mom, sister and grandma at home when all this happened. It was hard for me because almost all of our friends had to evacuate. I wanted to be there so I could help.”

Cindee Phillips understood the concern her family in Texas felt. 

“It was an odd feeling while we were packing,” she said, “you think that you are safe or far enough away, yet when the time came to evacuate, you feel as if this can’t be real.”

The Phillips home in Escondido is about 30 miles north of San Diego.  During the recent wildfires, the Witch Fire threatened the family’s neighborhood, and Cindee Phillips along with her daughter and mother-in-law were forced to leave their home and move to a safer area.  Her husband and daughter Courtney both sat anxiously by their phones in Texas waiting on word about the situation at home.

“We first heard about the fires when they were in the hills beyond our home in a town called Ramona,” Cindee Phillips said.  “When we went to bed Sunday night, my daughter Amy was a little more worried than I was.  They were still 15-20 miles away and we have never been threatened by a fire up there.  When I awoke Monday morning, things were much different,” she said.

The fires had merged and were within five miles of the Phillips home. 

They could not see the sun through a thick brown haze and the air carried an extremely bad smoke smell.

“They couldn’t see the fire because the smoke was so bad.  Visibility was only a mile,” Courtney Phillips said.

“I still didn’t feel too threatened,” Cindee Phillips said. 

However, the family began to discuss a plan of action if evacuation became a  reality.

“We talked about what we would take if necessary.  We came to the conclusion that the only irreplaceable things were pictures,” she said.

The worry of an ordered evacuation became real around 3 p.m. Monday Oct. 22.  A police officer came into their neighborhood and began telling people they should leave the area. 

“I started grabbing pictures off the walls, clothes from the closet, dog food, medication for my mother-in-law, my Bible, important papers, family jewelry and started packing the cars.  Within half an hour we were packed,” Cindee Phillips said.

During this time, Courtney and her father, whom the family will join to live in Dallas in December, waited for phone calls from the fire-ravaged state of California.

“It was harder, too, knowing I had told Courtney’s dad that we were evacuating, and he felt totally helpless,” Cindee Phillips said.

She kept in constant communication with Courtney and her father.

“My mom would call me every few hours just to keep me updated on everything,” Courtney Phillips said.

The family was fortunate and did not have to evacuate to the high school like so many others.  A friend of Cindee Phillips’ son found them a home to go to during their absence from their own house.  They also were only required to vacate their home for about five hours.

When the family returned, their house, as well as those of their neighbors, was perfectly fine. 

“It’s really amazing how the firefighters did such a great job saving as much as they did,” Cindee Phillips said.

They never saw flames close to them, but an area about two miles from them was “an eerie sight,” she said. 

“One side of the road would be burnt, and then it would be fine. Rancho Bernardo looks like a battle zone with burnt houses everywhere, and that’s about five or six miles from us.”

Cindee Phillips and her family recognize the mass destruction that the fires caused, but also see the hand of God in a path composed of charred remains that barely resemble the houses and other buildings they once were.

“This was a huge fire, and yet when I look around, it could have been much worse.  God spared many homes that were in the path of the fire,” she said.  “But we need to remember, as one father put it so well, it’s just a home. We have our family and our pets—we can replace a home.  You can’t replace a family.”