Along a winding walkway among rolling desert hills, a pale yellow house once stood. Now, the dirt has scorched, blackened patches from the sagebrush that went up in flames, and the home where longtime Reno resident Michele Lucero lived with her husband was reduced to rubble. As Lucero described the scene, the wind kicked up dust and the smell of burnt chemicals.
“Literally, it looks like a bomb went off. There is absolutely nothing to salvage. There’s not any little trinket or anything. There’s not one wall standing,” Lucero said.
Two Saturdays ago, Lucero was hosting a full house of friends and family from out of town. She had been getting alerts, but when the power went out, she wasn’t thinking about her stuff.
“There were about eight of us, and I just wanted them to be okay. That was my main concern: I have company here, and I’m responsible for them, so we’re getting in the cars and taking off now. When the power went out, I knew we were in trouble. We didn’t want to miss alerts,” Lucero said.
In this neck of the woods, no power means no cell service. Lucero said the glow from the fires was visible. With flashlights in hand, they scurried to leave. She grabbed medication and just a few other items.
The home burned on August 10. County officials notified Lucero two days later.
The home was special to her, even though they didn’t get to live there for very long — having moved in on January 31. They were finishing up landscaping. One of the few things to survive was a line of baby oak and birch trees propped up with sticks. And the appointment she had to paint the outside of the house sage green was no longer needed.
While she got out safely with her loved ones and Leo the husky, Lucero remembers the irreplaceable belongings lost to the fire.
“It’s just stuff, but my mom passed away, and my dad passed away; I had their photos. My grandmother had this beautiful type of jewelry, Sarah Coventry, it was rhinestones, it had three Christmas trees on it that I wore every Christmas. I had her handkerchief in a box, and it just smelled like her perfume that I’d kept closed all these years because every time I opened it, that made me think of her.” Lucero said.
Gil, 69, searched what was left of the garage to see if memorabilia from his law enforcement career had survived.
This was supposed to be their forever home, Lucero said.
“You just feel like you lost your best friend or something. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just your comfort, your home; you come in at night, and you just curl up on the couch, the way the sun came in. It’s just the way it felt,” Lucero said.
They are accepting donations through GoFundMe, and Lucero said gift cards are helpful for purchasing groceries and household items. The couple had been staying with her son and were preparing to move into an Airbnb covered by insurance.
Facing a mortgage with hundreds of thousands of dollars remaining, they don’t yet know if they will rebuild on the site.
