'Everything Was Incinerated': Scenes From One Community Wrecked by the Santa Rosa Fire

By THOMAS FULLEROCT. 10, 2017



Fire tore through Coffey Park, a subdivision of hundreds of homes in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Monday. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times

SANTA ROSA, Calif. — It looked like a blizzard of red embers had slammed into the suburban home of Bruce and Lisa Coats.

Mr. Coats recounted on Monday how he used his garden hose to spray his home down in hopes of saving it. Then he went to his neighbors’ homes and tried the same thing. It was futile.

The combination of wind and fire was unstoppable. Coffey Park, a subdivision of hundreds of homes in Santa Rosa, an hour north of San Francisco, burned to the ground.

“It looks like a bomb went off,” said Ms. Coats, an accounts assistant at a retirement home.

“A nuke bomb,” said her husband, a soils expert.


Lisa and Bruce Coats surveyed what remained of their home in Coffey Park. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Coffey Park was one of a number of neighborhoods in Northern California’s wine country devastated by wildfires on Monday. The flames were fueled by intense winds and months of dry weather. At least 11 people were killed and up to 20,000 were forced to evacuate in one of the most destructive fire emergencies in this fire-prone state’s history.



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