Support the Maple Creek Ranch after Park Fire

My Dad is a hero.

On July 24th, the Park fire headed towards my family’s 100 year old ranch in Cohasset, California. Less than a month prior, we lost our fire insurance as many others in California have. With this, my dad decided to stay on the property while my family and most residents of Cohasset evacuated, to do his best to protect the house. He had just finished setting up an 800ft high pressure sprinkler system around the house and barn the same day that the fire began raging.

On July 25th, I was a thousand miles offshore, half way across the Pacific and received a Garmin message from my Dad. He told me that the fire would be at the house in 20 minutes. From the middle of the ocean, my family across California and I held our breath awaiting news on the state of the property and house, as well as my Dad’s life and safety. My dad Ron Ward, Jon Coffman and Dan Kelleher stayed up for over 3 days straight fighting the fire with flames upwards of 200-300ft. It is because of their bravery and hard work that my grandmothers house still stands. Unfortunately, our storage containing most of our belongings, our well and 4000 ft waterline, horse barn, train tracks and many other structures on the property burned as well as a large portion of the forest. We lost over 400 acres of trees.

It is hard to put into words how proud I am of my father. We are lucky that he is okay, and that our house was able to be saved. Many others were not as lucky.

Here is a video of my father in the news depicting the situation:

https://youtu.be/4xX28zCYQos?si=zlB_3fzvoZXMMGgt

If you are interested in donating to help my family come back from this, please donate to the gofundme, or directly to my venmo at @racheleaward

We are specifically looking for donations in order to help rebuild our well, waterlines, train tracks, as well as replace the many sentimental belongings that my family and I lost.