By admin 
Two weeks ago, Brittanie Bibby, husband Kenneth and their 15-month-old baby moved from Arizona to Camarillo to live in the house she inherited from her father. They used their credit cards to turn the dilapidated building into a safe place to live.
On Wednesday, that safe place burned to the ground, leaving the family with no home, no savings and no idea what would happen next.
The next day, the shocked parents struggled to come to grips with the financial toll of the incident and the catastrophic sentimental loss.
“We lost everything,” Brittanie said. “All our family memories, all our belongings, social security cards, death certificates, birth certificates, my husband’s father’s ashes, my father’s ashes and my mother’s ashes.”
Brittanie Bibby holds her baby Ken. Brittanie and her husband lost their Camarillo home to the Mountain Fire two weeks after moving in.
(Brittany Bibby)
Their belongings were among the 132 buildings destroyed by the war fast moving mountain firewhich caught fire Wednesday morning and scorched more than 20,000 acres in the Ventura County mountains Thursday evening.
The family started collect donations on GoFundMe on Thursday and was able to get diapers and a change of clothes for baby Ken. Brittanie planned to sleep in the evacuation shelter Thursday evening and make another attempt at her mountain of tasks Friday morning.
“As a mother, I don’t really have the choice to panic or not think about the steps because I have a little human who is 100% dependent on me,” she said. “So even though I’m feeling a lot of things, I have to try to keep a clear mind so I can give him the best care.”
At the top of her priority list is finding a pediatrician; Ken suffers from asthma and his health is threatened by the thick smoke from forest fires.
“We have done everything we can to keep him in filtered and clean air so he is not triggered by the ash,” she said, “because all his medications and inhaler have been burned.”
When Brittanie received the evacuation alert around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, she ran to the daycare to try to pack the baby’s essentials, such as clothes and medicine. But when she looked out the window, she was confronted with a terrifying sight: giant flames leaping from buildings just one block away as the wind chased smoke up the hill toward her home.
There was no time to pack; the priority now was to get everyone out alive.
The Mountain Fire destroyed homes on both sides of Old Coach Drive in Camarillo.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
She grabbed her baby and helped her mother-in-law, Denise Bibby, her grandmother, Huguette Doucette, and her two older dogs get out of the house.
As she sped away, flames from burning brush leapt up and roared over the car. A dark thought went through her mind: ‘I’m not going to survive.’
The Bibbys arrived safely at a friend’s house. About three hours later, Brittanie felt herself going into shock.
“I went from somewhat comfortable to absolutely freezing,” she said. “Even though it was about 25 degrees in the house, my fingers turned blue and I had to be covered with blankets and sweaters.”
Baby Ken is also affected and has trouble sleeping in his confusing new environment.
“We are very sleep deprived because he cries a lot of the night,” she said.
His parents are also tense because they face an uncertain future.
They are still waiting for information from their trust attorney about whether the home was insured and are researching assistance grants they may qualify for.
On Sunday, Kenneth plans to return to work as a crew member at Trader Joe’s. On Monday, Brittanie starts a full-time customer service job at Walmart.
After feeling so happy to finally be settled in their new home, it is difficult for the couple to adjust to the reality after the fire.
“It’s a big systemic shock, almost like being in a bad dream,” Brittanie said. “You just want to wake up.”