Frank Jordan, former #SF mayor, loses his home to Sonoma County fire. https://t.co/exEP2MndpT pic.twitter.com/WDu6trX3el
— SFChronicle (@sfchronicle) October 13, 2017
Former San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan is one of those who lost his Sonoma County home to the Tubbs Fire Monday morning (or Sunday night). As he tells the Chronicle, he and his wife Wendy Paskin-Jordan were at their weekend home off Mark West Springs Road in northern Santa Rosa when they smelled smoke around 10 p.m. Sunday. Having heard no warnings, they waited until they saw flames at 11:30 p.m. before evacuating under horrific circumstances.
Jordan tells the Chron, "When I looked up, the flames were 50 or 60 feet high coming over the hills. And they were coming our way."
Jordan was one of the lucky ones to escape unscathed, however his home is gone, though he hasn't made it back to survey the damage himself after evacuating. His friend and neighbor, Peter Lang, the owner of Safari West, told him on the phone, "Frank, I’m standing here in your driveway, and there’s not one thing left."
Paskin-Jordan said she grabbed two framed photos off the wall. "One showed her husband with the Giants baseball team, shortly after he pulled together a $95 million bid from 12 local investors to keep the team from moving to Tampa Bay, Florida. The other photo showed Jordan posing in a parade car with former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo, celebrating the 49ers’ 1995 Super Bowl win."
Luckily for them, also, this was a second home, and they are now safely back at their primary residence in San Francisco.
Another home lost was the last home of "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, a hometown hero of sorts for Santa Rosa the nearby airport is named for him and uses Snoopy in its logo. Schulz lived in the hillside house in Santa Rosa with his second wife, Jean Schulz, from the 1970s until his death in 2000, as CNN reports. Mrs. Schulz was safely evacuated, but she lost some personal memorabilia from her late husband. The majority of his memorabilia and original illustrations, however, are housed at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, which was not touched by fire.
KQED just shared this questionable editorial cartoon, by Mark Fiore...
The home of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz burned to the ground in the wildfires.
— KQED News (@KQEDnews) October 13, 2017
Story: https://t.co/h0FgCETphD (Cartoon: Mark Fiore) pic.twitter.com/32wTRh31Gi
Related: Surprised By Fire: Harrowing Stories Of Escape, Regret, And Gratitude