SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KRON) — Life long Santa Rosa resident Marwan Dada evacuated from his home in Ricon Valley Monday morning as the Glass Fire neared.
He said the fire was heading over the ridge in Ricon Valley as the Sheriff’s Department knocked on doors, recommending evacuations.
“When you see something like that it’s frightening. You feel it in your belly. When there is a breeze and you see that at night time like that it moves quickly. There really isn’t a lot of thinking. You grab what is very important to you and you leave,” Dada said.
But it’s something he has experienced before.
“The last three years there has been evacuations,” Dada said.
Dada previously evacuated from the devastating Tubbs Fire in 2017. This was his home before he left:
And this is a photo of what he returned to, his house burned to rubble:
“You’re looking at roughly ten years of someone living, and everything destroyed,” Dada said about the destruction after the Tubbs Fire.
Three years later, he finds himself evacuated once again and worried about what he will return to this time around.
However, the wildfires aren’t going to make the Santa Rosa resident and businessman evacuate from the area completely — he says he’ll evacuate again and again if necessary.
“I am feeling like I can do it again,” Dada said laughing. “If it means rebuilding like we did in 2017, we get it done.”