Hundreds of wildfires burning across Central and Northern California that have already killed six people, more than doubled in size becoming some of the largest in state history and threatening many small towns.??
The state has been hit by its worst dry-lightning storms in nearly two decades with close to 12,000 strikes, and some 175,000 people have been told to leave their homes.?
Among those who lost their homes was a man named Hank Hanson, whose 'dream house' has turned into ashes.?
According to Associated Press, Hanson was awake because his electricity was out and the stifling 95-degree (35C) temperature prevented him from sleeping.
He quickly woke up his wife, and the two raced in their diesel truck down the road. The air rang with car horns as people desperately tried to wake up their neighbours.
Hanson and his wife made it to a hotel room in the nearby community of Fairfield, grateful they were alive. They found out later that their house was destroyed by the fire, reports AP.??
The house was really two houses. The first was a small redwood home originally built in Vacaville in the 1930s but later moved to the property. Hanson, who owned a business that made patio enclosures, bought the property in 1974. He spent weekends there for the next 17 years, planting walnut, peach, fig and eucalyptus trees.
In 1991, he completed a 3,000 square-foot (279-square-meter) addition to that house. It had a wine cellar, indoor and outdoor pools plus three fireplaces.
The fires this week have grown quickly and collectively have destroyed nearly 700 homes and other structures across the state.
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Most of the homes that were leveled were burned by the fire that took Hanson's home - the so-called LNU Lightning Complex fire. It's the second-largest wildfire in state history and has burned more than 490 square miles (1,270 square kilometers).
Hanson said he is treating the fire as ¡°an adventure" and talks excitedly when describing his harrowing escape. But his voice catches when he talks about the house, especially when he says he won't rebuild.
¡°I worked on it for 30 years. It was pretty nice,¡± he said. ¡°I wouldn't want to do it on a lesser scale, and I don't get time to top the old one,¡± Hanson said he plans to turn the lot into a park and a campground for himself and his friends for the next few years.
But first, he had some shopping to do. His tomatoes, surprisingly, did not burn. He bought some hoses and plans to return to the ranch in an attempt to water them, assuming the deer haven't eaten them first.
¡°They escaped the whole deal,¡± he said. ¡°About the only thing I have left in the world is tomatoes.¡±