California natives may be familiar with the wrath that wildfires have on the state, but Pennsylvania locals Jeff and Nicole Luetke had no idea how devastating they really can be until escaping one in Napa Valley Monday morning.
The couple was on a work-related trip to Wine Country where they expected to enjoy a few days of work and relaxation away from their busy lives in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. On Sunday however, they wildfires began, overwhelming Sonoma and Napa Counties where the couple was staying.
The same night, Nicole Luetke lit a fire in their hotel room and soon after the whole room started to smell like smoke. It wasn’t until the next morning that the two realized that the smoke was not in fact coming from the hotel’s in-suite chimneys but instead coming from the outside, as wildfire had overcome the surrounding areas.
“Initially I thought, there must be a number of people burning fires this evening in their little hotel rooms,” Jeff Luetke said. “But it turns out the next morning when we woke up, we immediately saw that the sky had this discoloration. It wasn’t clear, a fog had come through.”
Hotel management was scrambling to keep employees and customers calm, saying that they were taking the situation “minute by minute,” according to Nicole Luetke. The hotel later shut down valet services, sent their staff home, and advised guests to do the same, in order to evacuate.
“When you went outside it was an immediate sense of panic with the dark sky and ash falling down,” Nicole Luetke said.
“At that point, you know it’s too close,” said Jeff Luetke.
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Around 9 o’clock in the morning, the couple knew they had to flee the area in order to stay safe because the fires were closing in on them.
“The smell of smoke was so heavy you had to hold your nose to breathe,” Nicole Luetke said.
Faced with a tedious journey due to a main highway being shut down and a significant amount of traffic, the two gathered what belongings they could quickly get from their hotel room and their ash-coated car. They then traveled to San Francisco, away from the fires.
“Looking up the hills and the mountains you could see firetrucks trying to course their way up to save people,” Nicole Leutke said.
Unlike many California citizens faced with the destruction the wildfires caused, Jeff and Nicole were able to fly back to their Pennsylvania home and kindergarten-aged daughter soon after. With the death toll from the wildfires at 23, the couple knows how fortunate they are.
"My heart goes out to all of the people in Napa Valley, Sonoma, in that location," Jeff Luetke said.
For more information on the California wildfires, click here.
