Collier County brush fire grows to 7,500 acres, but residents allowed to return and I-75 reopens

It’s been nearly 50 years since Laurence LeBuff and his wife, Peggy, moved into their little wood-frame home in the forest of East Naples, off the road that would eventually be named after them.

They raised two kids there. They buried family pets in the yard.

On Wednesday, all that was left was pile of ash, bricks and a charred old tractor.

The LeBuffs' home, 5000 Le Buffs Road, was one of four rural homes burned down by the 7,500-acre inferno that’s been spreading since Sunday south of the Alligator Alley toll plaza and east of Collier Boulevard. Two other homes were destroyed on Le Buff Road, and the fourth was burned on Benfield Road, one road to the east.

By Wednesday afternoon, 40 percent of the brush fire had been contained. But the Florida Fire Service warned fire activity is anticipated to increase as humidity decreases and wind gusts increase, and it called the afternoon the "calm before the storm" in a news release.

The mandatory evacuation of areas affected by the brush fire — including the Club Naples RV Resort, the Panther’s Walk RV Resort and homes on Benfield Road and Newman Drive — was lifted at 6 p.m. Wednesday, according to Collier County. Residents have been asked to proceed with caution and yield to emergency vehicles.

Florida Highway Patrol also announced the reopening of all lanes of Interstate 75 (Alligator Alley) from the 101 mile marker through the 80 mile marker. Should visibility worsen as the night progresses, FHP will again close I-75 from Exit 101 to Exit 80.

Laurence and Peggy LeBuff lived in their home with their daughter, Virginia, and their black-and-white tuxedo cat, Nala. Considering the loss, they remained upbeat Wednesday.

“Nobody was hurt,” Laurence LeBuff said. “The rest was just material things.”

LeBuff, 72, who retired six years ago as the maintenance coordinator for the city of Naples sewer plant, built the home in 1970 after living on the property for two years in a little trailer, he said.

He’s been through fires before, but Tuesday was the first time his family has had to evacuate, LeBuff said.

“We looked out the window and saw a big black cloud coming from Benfield Road,” he said. “We said, ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ It was coming fast.”

The fire's greatest threat came Tuesday. After wind gusts of up to 30 mph made it harder for crews to battle the erratic fire Tuesday, weather conditions Wednesday allowed firefighters to make progress, said Samantha Quinn, a mitigation specialist with the Florida Forest Service.

"That makes it incredibly difficult to try to contain at that point," she said.

Quinn said Collier County hasn't seen a brush fire like the one crews are battling now in "about 10 years."

The home next door to the LeBuffs also burned in the fire. The yellow block home is owned by Samuel and Fawn Harrison, according to the Collier County Property Appraiser’s website. Samuel Harrison is the principal at Grace Community School in Golden Gate. He declined to speak Wednesday.

Charred vehicles, blackened riding lawn mowers, trailers and garage door repair parts litter Jim Kurth’s yard around the twisted metal and rubble that is all that’s left of his Le Buffs Road home.

Kurth’s home, 4895 Le Buffs Road, was destroyed Tuesday. Kurth, 59, escaped the fire with his Rottweiler, Junior, said Daniel Zurbrigg, Kurth's son-in-law.

“He’s been there for 30 years. He built that house,” Zurbrigg said. “He’s staying with us now.”

Zurbrigg called is father-in-law an “eclectic kind of guy” who is handy and earns a living as a self-employed garage door repairman. He said Kurth just had major hernia surgery a month ago.

Kurth, he said, paid off the house about a year ago and wasn’t insured. He said Kurth is “pretty tore up about it.”

“It’s one of those things you never think is going to happen,” Zurbrigg said. “It’s one of those things that you don’t plan for.”

Related link: Couple plans to rebuild after Collier brush fire destroys home

When word spread that the residents of Club Naples RV Resort needed to evacuate Tuesday afternoon, Sean Conlin, 42, was one of the last to leave the quiet community off Beck Boulevard.

"Just making sure everyone else got out," he said.

He spent the next few hours in a nearby Red Roof Inn with his wife, June, his teenage son and two dogs, worrying what the blaze might do to his home and his family's belongings. He barely slept.

"Not knowing is what drives you nuts," Conlin said. "You have to make plans for the future, and you don't know what that future is."

Unlike some seasonal residents, Conlin's home, where the family has lived for two years, is everything they have. Wednesday, just before noon, when officials allowed some residents to check on their homes and belongings after most of the surrounding brush had been charred to a crisp, Conlin went back and met a friend at the community.

"I gave her hug and I started crying again and I'm not a crier, but I'm emotional," he said. "And she says, 'It's OK. Everything's fine.' Because you get a lot of conflicting stories. You get people talking that, 'This is burned down. This is burned down.' And she's like, 'Everything's fine. Your house is still there.' And it was just that emotional let-go. It was just a big, giant emotional just drain for me."

To Conlin's surprise, there were virtually no signs of damage to his or any of the other homes in the community.

"It doesn't seem real, because it doesn't seem like anything's changed," he said. "There's people outside with their barbecues. There's people on their golf carts. It's just an odd feeling."

Darlene and Larry Sparks, 74, pulled their motorhome out of their lot as the flames started to close in on the community.

"I thought for sure this part of the row is going to be gone," she said, pointing to the homes closest to the burnt soil, where some of the ground still smoldered and little flames fed on the remaining wood. "It was full of smoke, and you could see the yellow in the trees." 

But the flames never reached the row of homes.

"Even on the back of these, there's no heat damage, nothing," Darlene Sparks, 72, said.

Residents of communities affected by the blaze gathered at the Golden Gate Community Center on Wednesday to eat breakfast, chat about their eventful last 24 hours and walk their dogs.

Most of the roughly 30 evacuees and Red Cross workers who spent the night at the center were relaxed and in good spirits, said Ed McHale, a Red Cross volunteer.

"This isn't their first rodeo," he said. "I think most of these people are seasoned. Most of them are over 60 years old, so they've seen one or two things in life."

Some of the evacuees spent the night on cots in a sleeping area that was partitioned from the rest of the gym, while others chose to sleep in their cars to be with their pets.

Among them were Harvey and Rosanne Dutkewich, who were evacuated Tuesday from their seasonal home in the Club Naples RV Resort.

"We slept in our cars," Rosanne Dutkewich, 69, said. "He (Harvey) had back surgery in Canada, and we figured the car seat might be a little better than the cot."

So they turned on the car radio, leaned back their seats and went to sleep, Rosanne Dutkewich said.

Wednesday morning, while Red Cross volunteers were still waiting for word from county officials on whether residents could return to their homes, the Dutkewichs were confident they would be able to go back to Club Naples RV Resort soon. Residents of the Forest Glen Golf & Country Club and Aventine at Naples Apartments were allowed to return to their homes Tuesday night.

But for now the two were happy they had escaped unscathed.

"What we left behind is just stuff," Dutkewich said.

HOW TO HELP:

The LeBuffs' church, Living Word Family Church, has set up a disaster relief fund at: https://napleschurch.ccbchurch.com/form_response.php?id=282

Jim Kurth's son-in-law started a GoFundMe account for Kurth with a goal of $65,000. To donate, visit: www.gofundme.com/house-caught-fire-in-a-brush-fire.

Friends and relatives set up two GoFundMe accounts to raise $10,000 for the Waldecks. To donate, see: www.gofundme.com/waldeck-house-fire or www.gofundme.com/monique-and-todd-waldecks-home.

Related links: 

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Lee, Collier brush fires make for busy week for Estero, Bonita crews

Collier County residents offer to help those affected by brush fire

Collier brush fire means stay indoors to avoid smoke inhalation

Lely Elementary conducts precautionary evacuation

Some choose to evacuate as 3,500-acre brush fire burns in eastern Collier County

Brush fire battled in eastern Collier County

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