Ditch kit: Paintings, dog and boots
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Scott Garrett, 48, a semiretired movie studio art department technician, lives in a four-story 6,000-square-foot home on the hillside of Grass Valley on Sonoma Street.
With his Labrador mix, Liberty, he decided to stay through the mandatory evacuations Monday and try to save his home. He was ready to leave “when all the houses started burning and exploding, all the ammunition and propane going off. I saw my neighbor and we decided to stay. I’m glad I did.”
“I made a ditch kit: my three favorite paintings, my dog and my favorite pair of shoes [military desert boots].”
Garrett filled large buckets with water and sprayed his wood deck with fire retardant. As embers started pelting the deck, he swept them away before they could take hold. He took a garden hose and hooked it up to neighbors’ homes and battled smoldering trees and bushes that would certainly have ignited nearby homes. Garrett says he worked from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m.
His house is full of movie memorabilia, including a painting of Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, a large winged angel statue from the Ben Affleck movie “Daredevil,” artwork from “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and “Planet of the Apes” props, including a full-size ape costume and an ornate bed.
Garrett and neighbor Stephen Chase Bass were walking the neighborhood and surveying the damage.
-- Robert Gauthier
