Santa Rosa residents brace for worst as Glass Fire destroys homes

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KRON) -- "The fire chief said that everything was destroyed except for one house."

Santa Rosa homeowners are bracing for the worst as reports are trickling out about the destruction from the Glass Fire.

It's an emotional time as those evacuated from the fire zone wait for confirmation about whether or not they'll have a house to go home to.

"I'm an optimist. Everybody kept saying how everything's gone and I kept thinking oh in other fires we see it jump around I was trying to hold out hope," Deborah Eppstein said.

"I handle it a bit differently," Mel Halbach said, holding back tears. "We're doing a pretty good job we're just focusing on what we need to do."

Mel Halbach and Deborah Eppstein tried to hold back their emotions as they wrap their minds around the possibility that they home they moved into in 2012 has been wiped away by fire.

Pictures show the house from before the fire, which they lived in part time and rented it out as a vacation property the rest of the year -- advertising it as a green hideaway.  

They say they've been told that of the roughly a dozen properties in their neighborhood -- only one is still standing. 

Smoke was still billowing out from several spots along the hillside. Residents are already bracing for the worst, and are just as upset about the devastation to the nature around them.

"What really captivated us with this house just the serenity of the nature and you lived in the nature. We had deer, we had cougars, bobcats, tons of birds and they were all perished," Mel Halbach said. "We never hear about that part of what happens and all of nature is gone. I know everything's going to re-grow again, but nonetheless the horror they had to go through. I get sickened by that."

The couple says this is the third time they've been evacuated since 2017. The first two times, their home had been spared -- but it doesn't look like they were so lucky this time around.

At this time they say it's too soon to say whether or not they will rebuild.

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