GRIZZLY FLATS, Calif. — Call it the Miracle on Tyler Drive.
As the Caldor fire ripped through this tiny foothill town in Northern California's El Dorado County Monday night, little was spared.
The post office burned down, along with the town church, and the Walt Tyler Elementary School that locals say was a two-room schoolhouse catering to about 30 students.
But across Tyler Drive from the smoldering embers of the school, four houses sat side by side Tuesday afternoon, virtually untouched.
"I just can't believe it," Amoreena Freitas said Tuesday night as she scanned photos taken by Sacramento Bee journalists who found her house, garden — even the backyard trampoline — intact. "It's just amazing that our house was saved."
Freitas, her husband, Matt, and their two daughters fled the house Monday night, driving in a caravan to Placerville to camp out in the parking lot of Hangtown Foreign Car Service, where Matt Freitas is a mechanic.
Amorenna Freitas already had seen videos on social media showing the house was not destroyed. But she was momentarily overtaken by emotion as she studied the photos of her home, with the jalapenos and zucchini in a raised bed out front, and the large peace sign adorning the garage.
Across the street from their home, the house of a neighbor who moved in three weeks ago was destroyed, as were most other houses in the area.
But the four on Tyler Drive survived partly, the family surmises, because there was a fire hydrant directly across the road from the houses.
"We have a fire hydrant right across the street from us," Amoreena Freitas said. "So I'm thinking it was the easiest thing for firefighters to save after the school went."
Matt Freitas also believes the work he put in making his yard space defensible against fire helped save the home, which the family bought 10 years ago for $70,000.
"I spent thousands of dollars and 10 years up there prepping my yard and those trees," he said. "I have a friend who's been through lots of fires who said, 'Your house is going to be the one that survives.'"
The Freitas family's caution about wildfire extended to their 9-year-old daughter, Maci, who won school contests for best artwork about creating defensible space, artwork that was on display at the Grizzly Flat post office until it was incinerated Monday.
Unlike others who stay in the face of evacuation warnings as fire approaches, the Freitas family never had any thought of doing so, they say.
Maci went to her fourth grade class on Monday because the family knew if there was a problem they could get to her in moments from across Tyler Drive.
"We knew we could get her if we needed to, and they did end up calling school at 1 o'clock," Amoreena Freitas said.
For much of Monday, the family packed and prepared and made sure the yard was cleared, and listened to the scanner. And at 10:10 p.m., when the evacuation warnings came, they were ready.
"It was just like a train of cars coming down the mountain," she said. "When we got the warning we left. We didn't wait for the mandatory evacuation because we knew it was going to be crazy getting out of there."
Grizzly Flats is situated in a forested area of winding, two-lane roads with sharp turns and steep hills in some places, the last place anyone would want to put off leaving in the face of an advancing fire.
And the speed of the Caldor fire's explosive growth left residents marveling at the destruction. Tuesday morning, the fire was estimated at 6,500 acres. Tuesday night, the figure was 30,000 acres and the Freitas family was dealing with reports that nearby Pollock Pines had been evacuated and Placerville might be next.
"We don't even feel safe here," Matt Freitas said as refugees from the fire drifted by the parking lot. "We'd feel more safe at the house if there weren't all those downed power lines to get through. We might even go down further tonight.
"We're here in a code red in Placerville, so if it's code red I don't want to hang out here too much longer."
And even with the knowledge that their house is safe, the family now has to consider what life will be like in Grizzly Flats in the coming years, as the slow rebuilding process commences.
"I'm glad that we still have neighbors," Amoreena Freitas said. "But it's extremely sad for our community and our other neighbors.
"I feel completely blessed."
