Some in Golden Gate Estates return to ruined homes, burned cars, grief over lost animals

A day after a massive brush fire tore through their neighborhood, residents who live south of Keane Avenue deep in Golden Gate Estates began to arrive to assess the damage.

What they’re finding is charred trees, broken fences, cars and boats burned out by fire, and in some cases, the ash remains of their homes.

Tammy Smith, one of the owners of the NGALA Wildlife Reserve on Inez Road, was one of the lucky ones. Firefighters saved her house, as well as the structures they use to house their animals — zebras, giraffes, bobcats. She was inspecting the property with her friend, Jake Jones, on Saturday morning.

Smith said they got most of the animals out before the flames arrived Friday afternoon, moving them to another location about 10 miles away.  They left behind their leopard, a Florida panther and their 9-year-old, 5,000-pound white rhinoceros Walter, but all the animals survived the fire.

She credits the firefighters for keeping her property wet and keeping Walter safe. Walter, she said, was “definitely shaken up.”

Her ex-husband, Donovan Smith, was burned in the fire and was taken to a burn unit in Tampa for treatment, Tammy Smith said.

“Thank God we didn’t lose the animals, lives. Thank God the structures are intact,” Smith said. “It could have been a lot worse.”

Things were worse for Smith’s neighbor, Tony Hamm, who lives across the street. His family’s home was destroyed in the fire. All that remains are charred appliances, burned cars and riding lawn mowers, and an above ground swimming pool still filled with water.

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“I feel guilty. I do,” Smith said. “I mean, here I have a house; it’s standing. And theirs is on the ground.”

Less than a day after his home burned down off Inez Road in Golden Gate Estates, Hamm said he doesn’t know what’s next for his family.

They have no house to go to, though people have been reaching out to help his family, he said. He has insurance on the house they built 20 years ago, but he was having trouble reaching his agent, he said.

What was once Hamm’s house is now a pile of ash and debris surrounded by blackened trees and the charred remains of several cars, vans and riding lawn mowers.

“It’s not even real for me yet. We’re still in shock,” he said. “We don’t know what we’re going to do.”

NGALA Wildlife Preserve

Coulter, an 18-foot-tall giraffe leaped out of his trailer, seemingly happy to be back to his home at the NGALA Wildlife Preserve on Saturday.

He was followed by Zeus, a zebra who shares the enclosure. While a much-needed heavy rain poured down, the preserve’s camels stepped out of the trailer.

The giraffe, zebra and camels were among more than 40 animals that were evacuated from the preserve as a massive brush fire approached homes and businesses along Keane Avenue on Friday. NGALA staff took them to another facility about 10 miles away, said Tammy Smith, an owner of the preserve.

It took longer than expected to get the animals back to the preserve Saturday because downed powerlines in front of the preserve blocked their 13 1/2-foot trailer from entering.

Impact on businesses

The brush fire burning in Golden Gate Estates also tore through part of the American Farms nursery off Keane Avenue on Friday, destroying several large trucks and trailers and a greenhouse the company used to store plastic flower pots.

With little inventory of plastic pots left, the fire will likely stop operations for at least a few days this week, said Jim Pugh, a co-owner of the nursery. They already have been in touch with suppliers around the country to restore their inventory. Few of the nursery’s plants or flowers were damaged in the fire.

Most of the company’s employees evacuated early Friday. A few stuck around to try to fight the fire back as best they could with fire hoses. But when the fire got into the greenhouse, it was no use.

“The thing was so intense it just rolled right over them,” Pugh said. “The water they were putting on it was inconsequential.”

Pugh said the company has another nursery on 23rd Street in the Estates that they’re keeping an eye on. He said they’re cautiously optimistic the second nursery won’t be damaged as well, but "the fires move so fricking fast.”

At the corner of Smith Road and Guevara Avenue Saturday, Jim Witcher was inspecting the remains of his trailer and work shed, which were destroyed by the fire.

“It’s been hard. But I’ve got so many friends and family who keep calling,” Witcher said. “It’s amazing how many people come out of the woodwork to help.”

Daily News reporters also found the remains of what appeared to be a mobile home off Kearney Avenue, which intersects with Inez Road, and the remains of a home on the east end of Keane Avenue.

'We survived'

Richard Aldrich saved his home with just a garden hose, a sprinkler and shovels.

It was Friday afternoon when flames that Aldrich estimated were at least 100 feet high began burning through the tree line to the east of the stilt home he rents off Keane Avenue.

Aldrich and his son Brandon were at neighbor Doug Burns’ house when the fire got into the field next to their homes.

“You couldn’t see three feet in front of you,” Burns said of the smoke.

Aldrich’s son, Brandon, ran back to the home. He followed, along with two friends, he said.

“We had a sprinkler on the roof and then a garden hose and shovels,” Aldrich said. “No firefighters to be seen until it was already long gone.”

They used the hose to wet the yard and extinguish fires that started burning on the side of the house, Aldrich said. Eventually, the power went out and with it the pump for their well, and then the hoses. All they had were the shovels then, Aldrich said.

“I was too scared to even think about dying,” Aldrich said Saturday while sitting in a golf cart and nursing a Bud Lite back in Burns’ yard. “I didn’t even think of that. Once we got to the house, the only thing we could think about is saving the house.”

“It came out of the woods, it felt like it was 100 mph,” he said of the fire.

Aldrich did lose his landscaping tools – his livelihood – in the fire, but he said he’s already had friends reach out willing to give him what he needs to keep working. His landlord, Paul Hardy, lost a small, unoccupied cabana house on an adjacent property.

Hardy said the cabana was part of a small hobby farm he has; not a major loss. He was just glad the other homes of Keane didn’t burn.

“We were lucky,” he said when reached on the phone. 

On Saturday afternoon, Aldrich joined friends gathered at Burns’ home for a makeshift “victory party.”

“No doubt about it,” Aldrich said. “We survived.”

Loss of family pet

For about 20 years, Scott and Tess Mosser have been raising kids and raising pigs on their land at the end of Kearney Avenue, deep in the eastern end of Golden Gate Estates.

On Saturday they returned to their home after a massive brush fire moved through the area.

They lost their mobile home. They lost a truck and tractors. They lost some chickens, and they lost some pigs, including their favorite – Big Boy, a 10-year-old who was a family pet.

“We’re in shock,” said Tess Mosser, 56. “I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never really had to live through disaster.”

Scott Mosser, 54, said he and his wife are temporarily living with his son, who lives closer to town. He didn’t have insurance on the home. All they escaped with were some clothes, family photos, medicine and some family heirloom guns, he said.

“What we did lose was everything else we had,” Tess Mosser said.

The Mossers said they enjoy the solitude of living in the woods and plan to continue living there. They said they plan to be at their property nearly every day to clean, rebuild and to feed their remaining pigs and chickens.

Scott Mosser said it’s been about a decade since the last time a brush fire burned near their home. That fire, which burned in front of their land, was nowhere near as intense as Friday’s inferno that torched the woods that have been dried out by Southwest Florida’s ongoing drought.

“It was wetter. It only burned like 10 acres,” Scott Mosser said of the previous fire. “They had it out in no time.”