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I'm Reagan and I'll be interviewing CJ Cameron who was in high school during the 2017 tubs fire. Um So what grade level and age you were during the time of the fire? I was 17 and I was in um high school senior year. And then um

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what school did you go to? And like what area was it in? Uh I was, I went to Cardinal Newman at the time. Um And that's uh south of Larkfield. It's like five minutes away from if you know where that is coffee. Ok. Um And then

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how did you first learn about the fire? Uh Well, the moon was blood red. Um I was woken up with my dad at like 11 o'clock and he was like, go look at the moon, go look the moon and I go look at the moon and

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it's blood red and I had no idea what was going on. Uh I thought it was the end of the world. So I'm freaking out. Uh I went to wake up my cousin who was staying with us at the time and I couldn't say anything. So

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I literally go down there and I'm like, just go look at the moon, something's wrong. Uh There was, I mean, there was smoke everywhere you could smell it. Um, and I was told to go to the top of the hills and that's where I, I drove

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to the top of the hills because you could see Mount Saint Elena from near where I live. And, uh for some reason I was dumb and I looked out over Linol Valley where it wasn't at the time. I don't even know how I didn't see it.

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And I looked out and I'm like, oh, it's fine. And as soon as I turned back to get into my car, I just see all of like, Calistoga is just on fire and I, I have never been that close to a wildfire at that point, but

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that was where I was at the time. So I actually got to see the fire firsthand, like as it was happening. Um, that's a long burden. Um, and then what were your, like, feelings and emotions during that time when you, like, first kind of, like, saw

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the fire dread fear. Uh, I was pretty terrified. Yeah. Um, I mean, that was, I've grown up in that area all my life. I mean, I was really born and raised so seeing it all on fire was pretty traumatizing, I'll be completely honest. But, um, a

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lot of fear, a lot of panic. Um, not much else. Um, and did you, like, start evacuating, like, kind of right away then or like, yes, we started, basically, we were pretty, uh, already we were pretty astute about, um, fires and stuff. So if we saw

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that, if we smelled that much smoke, we were pretty much on the, like, very cautious about it. And my dad is very proactive and he actually started getting everything ready before I even came back down with the news that it was, um, burning. Yeah. So, yeah,

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we packed up pretty fast, like, immediately after learning. So, yes. Um, and then, oh, sorry, what kind of student were you like before the fires? With, like, your sleep schedule and academics and things like that? Um, I was, I mean, I do, I do have a

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DH D really bad. So I guess as a student I wasn't, um, uh, that great. I still went to school. Um, but before the fires I was definitely at least attending and I was just trying to get stuff done and it was senior year and I

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was like, I was ready to get stuff done and be done with it all. Um, I mean, it hit October 17th. So that was like right at the beginning of the year. Um, it's gonna be a question about how I was afterwards or do you want

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me to explain that? Ok. Ok. You can explain now or whatever. Um, and then do you remember, like, kind of what it was like to go? Back to class. I know you were, like, on the off campus site, but, like, after the fires, do you remember

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kind of what it was like? It was irritating. Um, mostly, I mean, I, I was, uh, for lack of better words, I was pretty traumatized and we all were, um, I mean, it was just a, uh, just an incredible event and, um, going back on campus.

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So my school burned down. Yeah. Um, car broke down. So we had, uh, the offsite campuses and we went down to, uh, uh, I actually took Dalton down. Um, I was quite late all the time and it was awful. Yes, it was just getting down there

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was awful. They, they were very zealous about being, you know, the first back in for the first, back in class were so cool. We go, Cardinals and Cardinals. You were Cardinals. I don't even know why we were fired or something. Um, and it was just, we

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got there. I was super unmotivated to do anything and it was just downhill from there. Yeah. But going back in was not great. Yeah. Um, and then do you feel like your academic engagement then, like, suffered after that? And, um, like your sleep schedule and your

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mental health or anything like that? Absolutely. 100%. I mean, I, I flunked out of high school. Um, so I got my chest. Um, I really couldn't tell you what my, if I was going to actually graduate or not. But, uh, before the fires, maybe I would,

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maybe I wouldn't. Um, but after the fires I lost all motivation to do pretty much anything. I guess you knew there was depression. Um, I literally would leave school in the middle of the day. I mean, I wasn't a delinquent student or anything. I mean, I

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respected my teachers and stuff but I would just be like, I don't wanna be here and I would, I would leave and go home. Um, and, yeah, I mean, I didn't do any homework. I think the only thing I really took seriously was the art class,

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but I didn't even pass that because I would just, I just had no motivation whatsoever. I wouldn't say I was in a dark place, like, you know, brooding and angst but I definitely was, I guess, numb. Yeah. Like time felt weird. I mean, sometimes it still

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feels like I'm stuck in that time, uh, time frame because it was just everything changed and everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. But, um, yeah, it definitely went for the worst. Um, I mean, I didn't lose any spirits. I,

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like, I didn't lock myself in a room and, like, brood, I mean, I still was active but when it came to any academic responsibility or anything that took me away from my family, I was definitely not, um, motivated to do that. So that hopefully answers the

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question. Um, and then do you feel like your teachers at the school or like the staff there kind of like, made the process easier and were understanding or do you feel like they made it harder? Um, I'll say they gave me a gift basket. That was

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pretty much it. What, what did they give you? Oh, God. I think they give you a blanket, a mug and a Christmas ornament. Are they like Cardinal Newman themed or the same card? Newman? I'm so sorry. You lost your house. Um You know, thoughts and prayers.

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Here's a gift basket. You have little ornaments and uh chocolate. Do you like chocolate? Like I can't have milk or you can give it to a family member. That was it. I tried to get independent study. They didn't, they didn't, I mean, both don and I

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tried getting independent study at the time didn't work. They didn't want us to, um, because I kept on thinking late to clean. So, um, yeah, yeah, I won't say that they weren't helpful but I definitely won't say that they, they, they, it was not. Yeah. No.

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Um And like if you don't mind me asking like how, um because your house burned down, like how long were you able to like, where were you when your house was being rebuilt? And like how long did it take? So when our house first burned, like

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where were we before we started rebuilding or? Ok. So when, right after the fires we stayed with some, uh, family friends, Courtney and John, who were over by, um, they're in like, west of Verona Park. So I was pretty far away for a time. We were

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there for about 2 to 3 weeks and then my grandfather's house was fine. Um, which is near Calistoga. So we stayed there, we had a pop up trailer at the smell of mildew. Oh, it's awful. Um, and I stayed there for a bit until my parents,

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um, eventually bought an airstream trailer to, uh, stay on the property while it was rebuilt. And I stayed at my grandfather's for, um, six months and it's a very nice place, but I actually can't go there anymore because whenever I do, I'm just like fires and

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I get a weird depression, weird time. Like, I don't register time. Right. And it just feels like I'm in a funk. So I don't like being up there. Uh, but then for, I think until 2020 I was, I only stayed at my grandfather's for six months

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and, uh, once 2020 rolled around. Uh, I moved back onto the property and I stayed on, uh, I stayed at the, we, we call the barn. It's a granny unit up of a barn and I stayed there for a bit and then I lived in a

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trailer on the property and I, we got several trailers and, um, it sucked I never want to step in a trailer again. If it, it is, was the most depressing, cramped, claustrophobic experience of my life. I was lucky, I was very lucky. Don't get me wrong.

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Like I sound very pretentious, but I was very lucky to have afforded something like that, let alone stay. So we got a lot of opportunities for, man. I, I really do not like professional interview so I don't want to swear but I really do not like

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that. Airstream. So, yeah, that's, that's what happened after the, that's where we stayed. Um, and then how do you feel like your relationships with your peers were affected at all? And like, do you remember, like some of your friends' experiences with the fire? Uh, I wouldn't

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really say that the fires affected any of my, um, relationships with my peers. I mean, I was still pretty, like, maybe, maybe a bit more happy or lucky. Um, like happy go lucky. Probably not the right thing to say. But yeah, it didn't really affect much

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in terms of relationships with them. I mean, I wasn't like, I don't want to talk now guys, you know, I'm sorry? No, I was still, I was still same old, same old. It really, most of the things that have affected me have been more recently, which

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is interestingly enough. Um, or I've discovered were more recent in time, I guess. Um, but yeah, no, it didn't really affect anything that much. Um, and then, well, your daily routine changed a lot. But, um, how do you feel like your daily routine changed after the

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fire after the fire? Um, I would sleep in a lot and wouldn't really get out of bed. Um, played a lot of video games. I didn't really do anything on self improvement. You know, I didn't, I didn't read a book for like a year. Um, and

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I got into this level of what I considered, uh, comfortable for me, which was playing video games and just whenever I wasn't doing anything or going out with anybody, I would literally just do nothing. So I guess, yeah, I would just go inside my room and

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I just, yeah, bottle myself up so not healthy, not healthy in the slightest. Um, I didn't really go out, didn't, uh, didn't, I, I didn't really go on any more hikes. Uh, I didn't, um, I hung out with friends but only after school I wouldn't really

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go out of my way to do that. I mean, I didn't travel that much afterwards, so it was definitely didn't help my routine. Um So there's that, yeah. Um And then do you feel like you've kind of had like any like fear or paranoia about the

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fire coming back? Uh Yes and no. So I don't like the fires happening. Nobody does. Uh, but when we rebuilt, we basically rebuilt the house to be a fortress against fires. I mean, we have sprinklers everywhere for humidity bubbles. We have our water tanks, water pumps,

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fire hoses, uh, fire protective protective equipment. Um, even, even, uh, radios to communicate with each other if we need to actually defend. Um, so at this point it's just annoying. Um, though when we first rebuilt the house, it was very stressful. It was very stressful. I

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remember it's, whenever there is, it's less about the fires happening. Um, so when we know there's a fire that's like, ok, we know there's a fire, we know to act. It's when it's the wind storms, the windstorms are what freaks us out, like, out. Yeah, we're

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just like, oh, God, there's gonna be like, 50 MPH. That's ridiculous. Just really fast winds, really high winds. That's when we're like, because is a little nervous. So warm weather, high winds. That's what freaks us out. Not so much like the potential. Not, not so much

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the fire itself. Yeah. It's just that. Yeah. So, um, and then was your family affected financially by the fire? Um, at that time I wasn't really, um, invested in how we were spending our finances. I do know that we lost a lot of money, um, trying

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to get ourselves, we didn't get a lot of them benefits. And, uh, we, a lot of stuff was out of pocket. Yeah. Unfortunately, we, we, we, we had a very nice nest egg so we were able to rebuild, um, for a time. Uh, so, yes, yes,

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it did. Um, pretty drastically, I will say. Um, and then after the fire, do you feel like you have more of a disaster like safety plan in place? Oh, yeah. No, we do, we do safety drills multiple times a summer. Uh, make sure the water pump

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is going, making sure that we have the, the gear is ok. And up to date, uh, we, we even have like, MRE Si mean, I can't eat them. That would poison me. Kid me, those things are disgusting. Um, but if we were ever, like, we could

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leave because if we left and they wouldn't let us back in, we do have like, food supplies to last us for a while. So, yeah, we definitely have more of a plan than we did then. Yeah. Um, and then what was the hardest part about the

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fire for you? And why? Oh, gosh, hardest part. Probably losing motivation for school. Um, it's funny you don't actually think about losing all your stuff. Like, it's just gone early spring cleaning. Um, I mean, I bombed, yeah, IB a lot of lost, lost a lot of

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stuff. But I think the most difficult part was actually going back to the property because that's where I grew up. That was my home for, uh, 17, 18 years at the time. So, actually going back and seeing it just gone was, it wasn't like, oh, my

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God, I'm in tears. It's like, wow, she's gone. Yeah. And, uh, it was pretty, pretty intense. Um, not that it's an answer to the question but it was interesting. Um, uh, when the fire was coming over the hill because I live in kind of a basin.

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Uh, it was coming from the north. Uh, north. No, no, it was just coming directly from the north and when it would hit people's houses it would set off propane tanks and propane tanks would explode. So, literally for like 30 minutes, I thought we were being

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bombed because these explosions were happening periodically and I'm like, oh my God, did somebody start bombing in county? Why? Yeah. Um, anyway, that's not the answer to that question. That was just a piece of information that just popped in my head. Uh, most difficult part. Um,

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the whole thing. There's not really one part that exceeds another. Oh, you know what, you know what? Insurance insurance sucked because you had to list everything you owned and they would, you know, depreciate the value and you'd have to, you know, right to, to, you'd have

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to record from the, the car you bought last month to the random jar of paprika. You bought like six months ago in your pantry or so, everything. And, um, and it sucked because I had a lot of artifacts. My grandfather, I don't know how he got

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a lot of them. I knew that they were probably supposed to be in a museum. Um, those were gone and you can't really put a price on that. Um, so things that were worth way more than a 17 year old kid should have, um, were just

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like, oh, yeah, that was like 10 bucks and I'm like, no collectors would pay a lot of money for this. Um, which again, it's such so pretentious of me to say it's like they didn't, they didn't, you know, give me my full money's worth from my

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ink and cursed artifacts. Um Now that it's not really fair to say it, but um a lot of other things they did, you know, it was just tedious, it was really tedious trying to record everything. And uh now if for some reason anybody listens to this

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recording, if there's ever a fire, get your phone and record your house, take a video of everything and then if you are able to just open closets, move your phone around with the flashlight on and just see what there is to see. Then you can go

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back in the video if you lose your house, you can just be like, oh, yeah, I had that, that was in the back of my closet. I wouldn't have remembered that. I paid $200 for that pair of skates. Um, but yeah, I guess insurance was the

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most difficult part, but there's, but in reality, there's no more or less than those difficult adults sucked. It was awful competition. Um And then if you had to relive the fire, um, what would you do differently? I would grab more of my stuff. Yeah, I'd grab

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way more of my stuff. Um, maybe put it down in the barn because that survived. Um, but that's, you know, comedy aside, I would want to grab my photos because we had, we had, we would have boxes of photos before they were digital. And so there's

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a lot of my childhood that was on camera that's just gone forever. There's no getting it back. So that's what sucks. Um I'm using that word way too much. That's what it was more tragic was that I, I saw them, I looked at that and I,

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I was open in the closet and I saw the box of photos and I'm like, I don't need that. Yeah, I just left and I didn't grab him but I'm like shit. Oh, sorry. It's not that um I should have grabbed that. Yeah, I grabbed everything.

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I grabbed my, my box of letters that I've I've collected for years, you know, since I was five. I grabbed my PS four which is not that important. Uh Some various artifacts and stuff of mine. And uh I, I literally filled my pockets full of, I'm

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making it seem like I lived in like some giant library or archive. No, I lived, my, my room was kind of uh collectors hoard. Yeah, I stuffed my pockets with a bunch of, like, trinkets and stuff and I left and, I mean, I still lost like,

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a ton of stuff. Like I, oh my God. I lost a lot of cool stuff. But, yeah. Yeah, it was about earth. Um, and then what did you learn after the fire? What did I learn after this? Uh, it's a very broad question. There's a lot

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of things I, I learned, um, to grab everything and, um, I guess now whenever there's a fire, I guess I learned not to be as paranoid and panicked like a fire will happen and we'll see the smoke and we're just like, oh, Christ again. Ok. Grab

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the hose, let's hose down on all this stuff. We gotta trim back these trees. Um, I guess, you know, one thing I did learn was, uh, the stumps when they smolder and, uh, they burn into the ground, all the roots burn and you could fall into

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that. That's something I learned. Yeah, it's just a, it's a k, so when there's a stump at a burn or a tree falls down and burns, but its stump is, it's, you know, the roots will, uh, smolder. So it's really dangerous to, um, actually go out

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in the wilderness when there's a bunch of just holes in the ground because you'll just step and then all of a sudden you're just in a, a literal like furnace, you know, get like third degree burns all the way up to your calf. It's, it's bad

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that, that's what, that's what happened to a lot of people that were, um, actually that happened to a few looters and that happened to some people who were, like, trying to get back on their property and they just went and they just went right into the,

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oh God, there's a name for that. Um, stop smoldering. Who knows? Um, that's something I learned other than that it's, it's all quite a blur honestly. So there, I can guarantee you there's other stuff I learned. Um, if you're looking for, like I learned the value

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of family and coming together. I love my family. We learned that. But that's, it's, it's so, it's so cliche. Ok. Yeah. Is that it? Yeah, that's all. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you.