GRIZZLY FLATS — Buck Minitch left his grueling job with Cal Fire this summer to join the local Pioneer Fire Protection District, hoping to spend more time with his wife, Hannah, and their two daughters, exploring the woods around their mountaintop home in El Dorado County.

But three days after the Caldor Fire broke out, the Pioneer Fire chief called Buck to the fire lines, while his wife fled their tiny community of Grizzly Flats with the girls, three dogs, a kitten and a duffel bag of clothes.

Hannah was staring up at the oak trees the next morning on her parents’ property where she’d evacuated about 70 miles south when she got the text from her husband. It was a photo, showing a chimney rising up where their house used to be.

When he called seconds later, she was already crying. “It’s all gone,” he said.

She sobbed for a few minutes — Buck quiet on the other end — and then hung up so he could rejoin his crew.

“‘We’ve got nothing left here,'” she recalled him saying. “‘I’ve gotta go protect what’s left for other people.”

The Minitches are among dozens of people who lost their homes in the town of Grizzly Flats as the Caldor Fire tore through thick brush and high treetops in the Sierra foothills at an astonishing pace of about 1,000 acres per hour. By Wednesday, the blaze had charred 126,566 acres, forcing the indefinite closure of a stretch of Highway 50 and was creeping closer to communities near South Lake Tahoe.

The Minitch family home in Grizzly Flats was destroyed overnight Aug. 17, 2021, as captured in a photo that firefighter Buck Minitch sent to his wife Hannah Minitch that morning. (Courtesy of Buck Minitch) 

They’re also part of another group of Californians: Families with a firefighter battling the very same fires that threaten — and sometimes destroy — their homes.

The Minitches’ experience is relatively common among California firefighters, said Tim Edwards, president of Cal Fire Local 2881, which represents about 6,800 of the state’s approximately 7,300 personnel. Although the union does not officially track how many members have lost their homes, 30 firefighters battling the 2017 Tubbs Fire lost their homes in the blaze, and another 45 lost their homes in Paradise during the Camp Fire the following year, he said. In 2020, several houses belonging to firefighters were destroyed within a few miles of each other in the Santa Cruz mountains during the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire.

The union has not yet confirmed how many firefighters have lost their homes in this year’s blazes.

Sometimes, staffing for California’s brutal wildfire seasons is so thin that affected firefighters can’t leave their assignments to help their families evacuate, Edwards said. Even when given the option, many — including Buck — are determined to stay in the field even if given the option to go, particularly those assigned to smaller, rural communities where they have deep roots.

“Most of these firefighters, you’re not going to be able to keep them away from the job, even if they’ve lost their home,” said Capt. Keith Wade, a Cal Fire spokesperson assigned to the Caldor Fire. “There’s a certain personality that does this job, a fortitude to continue with the mission.

“It’s their neighbors — truly — this is their real neighbors, that they know personally, have personal stories with,” Wade added.

GRIZZLY FLATS, CA – Aug. 18: A street sign for a fire station that no longer exists is blistered in Grizzly Flats, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, after It and much of the town was decimated by the Calder Fire. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) 

For the Minitches, the overlapping circumstances have created an eerie sense of limbo.

“You have to put everything on hold — the grieving process of your home — but I’m waiting to have that together as a family,” Hannah said. “I want him home. I want to talk to him. Like, ‘Where’s your head at? Oh my gosh, we lost everything.'”

The Caldor Fire ballooned so fast it took both residents and the fire crews at the scene by surprise, razing homes in the 1,200-person Grizzly Flats community just a few hours after evacuation warnings went out last Monday.

That evening at the Minitches’ three-bedroom house on Rollingwood Drive, nestled among ponderosa pines, sugar pines and Douglas firs, Hannah Minitch closed the windows and left a few lights on. She wanted to get the girls out early to avoid jammed roads or running out of gas.

Before she locked the front door, she glanced at the palm-sized piece of wood resting on the entryway shelves: A rose that Buck carved for her during a long night on a fire strike team a few years ago. Other shelves were scattered with heart-shaped rocks he’d brought her from fire lines, drawing the occasional question from coworkers.

She left the gifts behind, along with a garland of clay hearts on the mantle, beloved glass lanterns, family photos, the dinner table Buck built — believing the fire might spare their home.

“It kills me,” she said.

The flames more than doubled in size that night, destroying their entire street.

As of Wednesday evening, the blaze was 12% contained as crews braced for temperatures to creep up throughout the end of the week. To the north, the Dixie Fire — which has been burning since mid-July — now covers a stunning 735,000 acres across five counties, an area more than twice the size of Los Angeles. It is about 45% contained.

Since the Minitches moved from San Diego to El Dorado County nearly three years ago, they have spent afternoons splashing through hidden streams and ponds, crafting little boats out of leaves and playing with homemade slingshots by the water. The trees were so thick around their home, and the street so quiet, that it felt like they were always camping.

GRIZZLY FLATS, CA – Aug. 18: A sign for Grizzly Flats, Calif. is charred, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, after the community was burned by the Caldor Fire. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) 

Still, fire was never far from their minds. The girls learned to rake pine needles from the yard and remove debris from the top of the house. Hannah and Buck, 16 years married and more than 10 years into his firefighting career, often discussed the need to escape early if a blaze broke out, far before sheriff’s deputies came knocking on doors.

But they didn’t plan to lose everything.

Hannah distracts herself helping her daughters with their virtual schooling and researching how to buy a trailer home. The couple exchanges hearts and “I love you” texts when Buck has cell service — but any big decisions will have to wait.

Picturing Buck on the fire line makes Hannah feel “incredibly proud.” He’s been on many strike teams, but Hannah knows this fire has been the hardest.

She texted him a reminder: “You are doing something. Look at what you’re doing.”

A GoFundMe for the Minitch family can be found here,