Read Our Testimonials - Home Defender Kits

Real Experiences From Real People

On October 20th, 2020, I got word that the Blue Ridge Fire was threatening my home. After picking up my teen son from school, I raced home to gather important items and my two dogs before the fire reached the house. While my son was putting the valued items into my truck, I was able to grab my Home Defender Kit from the garage. I knew exactly where it was, and the bag had all of the necessary gear to help defend my house from the fire in one spot. The bag contained the 200 feet of fire hose, the fire nozzle to spray the water, the hose adapter for the hydrant, and the wrench to open the hydrant. I laid out the hose from the hydrant to my back yard and waited for the fire department to come. I watched as the fire get closer and closer to my house, hoping to see the fire trucks come down my street any minute. The reality I found out afterward was the fire department was overwhelmed by this fast moving fire, fueled by the racing Santa Ana winds. There was no way for them to keep up with the fire with the limited resources available. Earlier that morning, another fire broke out in Irvine, pulling most of the fire engines and fire trucks from North Orange County to help with that fire. There were no fire trucks available in the area to help my street and save my house. I could see the flames as the fire ran down the hill immediately behind my house and my neighbor’s house. I knew what I had to do. I hooked up the hose to the hydrant, turned on the hydrant, and started to spray water on the approaching flames. I worked with my neighbors, and my son to stop the fire from destroying my home, as you can see in the Channel 5 footage. The fire department did not come, and luckily we were prepared to stop the fire in our area with the gear in Home Defender Kit. We watched the fire move down the street further west, and threaten our other neighbors’ homes in the next section of housing tracks. The fire department still was not in our area. We could not just stand by and see others lose their homes, so we unhooked the hose from our hydrant, and loaded the gear into my truck to go to the next area. We ended up going to five more hydrants in our neighborhood, using the hose and nozzle from the Home Defender Kit, saving many more homes with the assistances of other neighbors. The rest of the day we used this gear to put out spot fires and defend more areas of our neighborhood, including the rail road tracks that run through the area. The Blue Ridge fire burned at least 14,334 acres and destroyed 10 homes in the Yorba Linda area. I know I would have lost my house and many of my neighbor’s houses would have burned to the ground if I had not been prepared with the Home Defender Kit.

We just sat down to start our shift at work, when Scott noticed a notification on our ring doorbell. He answered it and it was the sheriff's dept. evacuating the neighborhood. We then looked at our security cameras and could see the smoke and fire outside. We ran out of the office and started screaming back home as fast as we could, but it's sometimes an hour drive. We had already been driving more than 20 minutes before any of our neighbors called us. By then, they had all left already and we were afraid our dogs were now trapped in the backyard, or the house, if it caught fire. I was driving and Scott was constantly looking at our cameras to see the fire progression. Ironically, a firetruck was sitting on our cul-de-sac, staging on our mostly empty street, and had been there for at least 30 minutes just waiting. As soon as we saw flames coming down the hill (we back right up to Chino Hills State Park property at the very end of the neighborhood), the firetruck left. We later learned they were only going to engage in a firefight if a structure was on fire, but they would not fight a fire that was undoubtedly headed TOWARD and ultimately WOULD catch a structure on fire. We know Chino Hills is state property, but it still seemed ridiculous they couldn't blast their hose on the hill to prevent having to save houses only AFTER they caught fire. We all know by then, it's too late. So we spent the next several hours dragging garden hoses and attaching them together so they were long enough to reach behind the houses, even jumping neighboring backyards to collect enough of them to do the job. We joined only one other neighbor fighting the fire, whose husband and son bailed after we found her and started helping. We only ever saw one other neighbor who stayed in the immediate area, thankfully saving his neighbor's home that had a palm fully engulfed one foot away from the roof line. What took us hours of strenuous work, most of which many of our elderly neighbors would never be able to physically do even if they wanted to, could have been accomplished if the fire dept. just blasted their hose and saturated the hill in 20-40 minutes. Cal Fire, the state fire authority responsible for the state property that is just on the other side of our driveway, didn't show up until two days later, no fault of their own. But by then, the immediate danger was gone and had we not rushed home when everyone else fled, we know there would have been structures lost or severely damaged.