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Hello. I'm chris smith today as part of the history and healing project. We're going to be speaking to Maria a Roscoe and her daughter Cassandra the morning of the fire, they fled their home in Coffey Park with cassandra's younger brother, Augustine. They also were able to

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get their dog out of the house. Maria is a counselor at Roseland Creek Middle School, we were asleep and then my mom comes in and she just told us to get up and so we did. My brother is like, what's what I was on facebook and

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they were talking about the fire um you know, in Calistoga area. So I knew that that was there and I could smell it. Um but never thought that it would come to my house, There was a lot of wind. So I couldn't sleep around 2:00, we

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had some night lights on and the lights went out and I felt the whole house shake and I was like, this is weird. Around three o'clock I started hearing more like sirens and popping sounds and I was like, this sounds really close. So I actually opened

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my front door and looked out the window and there was embers falling from the sky onto my neighbor's yard onto my yard catching little fires and that's when I realized this is here, this is we need to move. And so she's just like grab something, we

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have to leave. It was very scary and I was kind of in like protective mode. I was like, I gotta get my kids out of here. It was scary to think that it was that close, but at the same time you also think, oh well it's

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not really going to get to my house, is it? So I didn't grab more things. We just grab the basics because we didn't think it was going to burn down. We're just like, oh, we'll grab the rest later or so we'll come back. But I grabbed

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my laptop and the kids passports in my purse. My kids grabbed my son, grabbed a little video game and a blanket and a pillow and my daughter grabbed a blanket and a little stuffed animal and the dog, my mom had the door open and it was

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really cold but we saw the embers and stuff and when my mom told us to get in the car, I remembered to grab my dog because she was like still there behind the little fence that we had and no one really remembered her. And so I

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just grabbed her really fast and we went in the car and we were waiting because my mom was still looking for something. One of my neighbors I know he works late, he works nights like he gets up at three in the morning, I knew that he

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was home and so I went and knocked on his door. He wouldn't answer for a while. So it was very stressful and then I got in my car and just started honking and honking and he finally came out and he's like, what's going on? I said

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we got to go the fires here and I called my mom who lives in Healdsburg and I said we're coming kind of freaking out because there was a lot of people on the road and like we tried getting to somewhere, my mom tried going on the

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Gps to try to find us a way out. We went through Fulton road and just looking out, you could see the flames all like it was just a big glow on the side of the road and that was all coffee park. Um I know now and

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then we had to take another route because river road was closed. One of my biggest fears like if I take this other road, is it going to be closed as well, how am I gonna get to Healdsburg? And I had, I lost cell service on the

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way to my mom's house so I couldn't even tell her where I was as soon as we got to my grandma's house like the power was still on and everything and so we're like okay we're good and my mom tried calling people but there was no

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service and like two minutes later the lights went out there to the only phone that worked was my grandma's and she had like a flip phone. So my mom used that to call people and tell them that they were safe, it's I mean time helps and

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gets a little bit easier but there's, there's moments where you just get really upset, frustrated, um you know, breakdown, sad. Um we lived here since november a couple of weeks ago, my son's bike was stolen here, you know, they came into our backyard to take it.

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So it was just another sense of like, can I really keep my kids safe, you know, And so the whole thing came back. Um but just kind of going through it and the community has been really helpful, really coming together and you know, help us out

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a lot. The school district I work with has been very helpful and helped a lot. Everybody came together and helped us um, you know, kind of build this house together, so that's been keeping us going definitely when they say like there's a fire somewhere kind of

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scares me and when we first moved here, the, the carbon dioxide um alarm went off and that kind of scared me because I was like, I don't this no stay strong and don't give up, even if you really feel like there's nothing left to do because

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I felt really useless, but I didn't give up and now I feel like I can do more people who have expressed still being traumatized when they hear like sirens and things like that when they smell smoke, I would wish or hope that there'd be a lot

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more support for people free ideally or if not really reduced costs because there's a lot of people who are still struggling with that, with the emotional part of it and how hard it was. And and some people I know are still not in the house and

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making sure that people that were affected are being taken care of in all aspects.