Earlier this month, the Sunrise Fire threatened more than two dozen homes in the Verdi area. Ann Marie McCann was in her home, near Dog Valley Road, when she heard about it.
"Our neighbor called and said, 'you have fire coming down the hill,'Â McCann said. "All of the sudden we ran out and saw an electrical pole burst into flames and thought, oh my gosh, not here, not yet."
The McCanns evacuated with their pets.
"I thought I was prepared but after all was said and done, I realized I wasn't," McCann said. "I still had a lot to do; my hoses were short, I didn't have a list of things I wanted to take with me. I grabbed a work computer and not my jewelry box. When your adrenaline is running, you just don't think about the important things that you want to take with you."
They had taken steps to protect their home, and those paid off. It was untouched when they returned, though the fire burned right up to their backyard.
"We had planned that really well; our landscaper had worked with us on hardening our home," McCann said. "Our trees were trimmed, our pine needles were raked away from the fence and we'd just installed a fire hydrant along with out neighbors at the end of the driveway."
The Verdi area has a long history of wildfires.
"We've owned our home in Verdi for six years and in that six years we've had two fires very close to our home," said Pam Pagano. "Two years ago we had the Farad Fire and I was out of town and getting texts. I called my neighbor and she said the firemen were at my home, they had hosed everything down, cleared everything and I was able to come home and my house was safe."
She says the home was also well prepared for wildfire.
"It's stucco with tile roofing and the previous owners had done an excellent job with defensible space and we just had to keep it maintained," Pagano said. "Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District comes up to check every year, and we got the go ahead that we did have defensible space."
McCann and Pagano are co-chairs of a recently formed nonprofit called the Verdi/Mogul Fire Adaptive Community. The goal is to educate the community about living with wildfire and help neighbors prepare their homes for the worst.
"We all have a responsibility to maintain our homes, not only for ourselves but our neighbors," McCann said. "If you don't clean up your homes you're putting your neighbor's home at risk as well."
They're holding a Wildfire Preparedness Fair on Saturday at Cabela's. More than a dozen different agencies are coming together to help the community get ready and stay that way.
"We hope when they leave the fair, they have the knowledge and the power with all the tools we are going to be providing." Pagano said. Â "And that now they'll go home and work with their neighbors to make sure their homes are safe. Wildfires are going to happen. We can't really control that - we wish we could - but we can control what happens to our property."
The fair is a family-friendly event that will feature some friendly animals.
"One of my neighbors has goats and her area is totally clean because of those goats," Pagano said. "She's going to have a petting area at our fair this Saturday with information on how you maintain goats and how to keep your defensible space up."
More information: https://www.verdifirewise.com/
