'It's all gone': Couple one of many with homes destroyed in Gray fire
MEDICAL LAKE, Wash. — Not much is left behind Saturday night in Medical Lake: home after home destroyed, entire neighborhoods gone and cars, boats and trailers all melted and unrecognizable.
Lots that were once homes lining up along a lake are now reduced to rubble, families that had been here for generations had their homes stolen from them by mother nature in a matter of hours.
"She grew up here right on the lake," Bobby Dematteo said. "We're waiting to close on a house, and [we] come to this."
Bobby and his wife just move back to Spokane from Virginia.
They were visiting his wife's family when they first saw the flames.
They rushed back to grab the dogs and remaining family members, then all they could do was wait, returning for the first time Saturday morning.
"When we pulled down the street, first we see a house on the right that's still there and we figured everything was good, until we made the turn and seen everything was gone," Dematteo said.
The homes her stepfather and brother built by hand are now rubble.
"It's all gone," Dematteo said. "All you see if the fireplace."
But neighbors are extending a hand as that fire continued to inch toward homes on Friday. Don Kennedy ignored the evacuation notice, and instead, began fending off flames from his neighborhood property.
"We saw the neighbor's utility trailer was on fire and the bed liner of the pickup was on fire," Kennedy said. "So we got our garden hoses and buckets of water from the lake and we stopped the brush."
Their efforts redirected flames around both of their homes. He's also opening his door to the friends, who lost everything to these flames.
Another family evacuated late and they didn't have a place to go. A hotel in Spokane Valley let them spend the night free of charge.
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