LIVEMORE — A woman was stranded on top of her car in a swift-moving Livermore creek for about 15 hours before being rescued Tuesday morning, the Alameda County Fire Department said.

Just after 10 a.m. Tuesday, a camper near the 7000 block of Del Valle Road called the Alameda County Fire Department about a car submerged in the water.

Fire crews at the scene spotted a woman sitting on top of the car and began planning a rescue, while calling the CHP for help. Thanks to appropriate weather, a CHP helicopter was able to lower a rescue technician and get the woman out of the creek.

“It could have had a whole different outcome. She could have been swept downstream, but she was strong enough to get up on top of the vehicle,” said Battalion Chief Kent Carlin, with Alameda Fire. “Maybe out of her tenacity or luck. I don’t know what it was. The entire cab was submerged, so she was able to swim out of the window and climb herself up on the vehicle.”

Video posted on the CHP Golden Gate Division Air Operations account showed the dramatic rescue.

**Water Rescue–Lake Del Valle**

This morning, CHP H-30 responded with Alameda County Fire, Pleasanton-Livermore Fire, East Bay Regional Parks, San Ramon Fire Department Helicopter Rescue Technician (HRT) and Falck Ambulance to a report of an overturned vehicle at Lake Del Valle. It was further reported that the occupant was sitting on top of the vehicle in the middle of a flowing creek.

As firefighters set up for a rescue with rescue swimmers, H-30 arrived overhead and lowered a San Ramon Valley Fire Department Helicopter Rescue Technician (HRT) to the vehicle. The San Ramon Valley Fire HRT placed the victim in a rescue harness for rescue. H-30 was able to hoist the HRT member and victim from the car to waiting firefighters.

The victim was transported to a local hospital by ambulance with minor injuries. It appears the victim attempted to drive across a creek that was moving fairly swiftly due to recent rains causing her vehicle to overturn in the creek.

Posted by CHP – Golden Gate Division Air Operations on Tuesday, January 23, 2024

According to Alameda Fire, the woman tried to drive through the creek around 7:30 p.m. Monday, but she underestimated how deep it was and was running faster than expected causing her car to overturn.

She was stranded for about 15 hours. Rescue crews said she would be OK, but she was still taken to a hospital to be evaluated.

Kelsi Thorud contributed to this report.

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West Fort Worth Community Adds Upscale Apartment Living South of Interstate 30

FORT WORTH, Texas, Aug. 2, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Mill Creek Residential, a leading developer, owner-operator and investment manager specializing in premier rental housing across the U.S., today announced the start of preleasing at Modera Walsh, a contemporary apartment community in the Walsh development on the west side of Fort Worth.

Mill Creek Logo

Modera Walsh, which consists of 379 apartment homes, sits at the confluence of Walsh Parkway and Interstates 20 and 30 – the primary east-west thoroughfares serving the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. The community is part of an 80-acre district being built just south of Interstate 30 along South Marys Creek, which is expected to include a mix of future office buildings, retail, upscale housing and restaurants. The emerging district currently includes a Cook Children’s location offering pediatric, urgent care, and orthopedic and sports medicine specialty care.

Surrounded by rolling hills, two lakes, live oaks and long-range vistas, Modera Walsh embraces the unique topography with special plans for open spaces, parks and recreational trails. First move-ins are anticipated for later this month. 

“Walsh is one of the most desirable living destinations in the DFW metroplex,” said Michael Blackwell, senior managing director of development in North Texas for Mill Creek Residential. “It fills a unique niche in the market because of its quick access to the heart of Fort Worth, its outstanding school system, forward-thinking design and rolling terrain with recreational opportunities unlike anywhere else in the metro area. The natural landscape and thoughtful planning create a unique setting and there is a remarkable sense of community at Walsh, so we could not be more excited to join the neighborhood.”

The award-winning Walsh development spans more than 7,000 acres and is one of the largest mixed-use developments underway in the U.S. within minutes of a major city center. The surrounding Aledo Independent School District is regarded as one of the premier districts in the DFW area and routinely ranks in the top 10 school districts in the state.

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Designed to offer a variety of upscale options, the three-story community features 335 conventional apartment homes, 20 townhomes and 24 casita homes contained within six quadplex buildings. The conventional homes include one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts averaging a generous 959 square feet. The three-bedroom townhomes average 1,859 square feet while the quadplex homes, which feature one- and two-bedroom layouts, average 952 square feet. Both the townhomes and the casitas have attached parking garages and additional private garages are available throughout the community.

Homes will be delivered with a variety of refined features, including front-control electric ranges, side-by-side refrigerators, hidden-control dishwashers, premium granite countertops, wood-plank flooring, tile backsplashes, matte black plumbing fixtures and finishes, kitchen islands, oversized primary bedrooms, 10-foot ceilings and 42-inch custom cabinetry. Smart features include programmable thermostats, key fob access, mobile-app entry and ultra-high-speed WiFi.

Inspired in part by the renowned resort community of Alys Beach and intentionally woven into the surrounding landscape, the architecture and community amenities offer a lifestyle that is sophisticated but relaxed in an environment that is completely connected.

Amenities include a multitiered resort-style swimming pool, cabanas, outdoor deck with grilling areas and an outdoor kitchen, landscaped paseos, fire pit courtyards, a resident lounge and oversized verandah with co-working spaces, and a 24-hour fitness center equipped with TRX machines, cardio equipment and a separate yoga/Pilates studio. Just outside of the two-story clubroom is a private catering and dining room for special dinners or larger format remote meetings. The pet-friendly community also features a pet spa and an onsite dog park. Residents will also have access to EV charging stations, private parking garages and dedicated bike storage and lockers.

About Mill Creek Residential
Mill Creek Residential Trust LLC is a national rental housing company focused on the development, acquisition, and operation of rental communities in targeted markets nationwide. The national company, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, proactively develops, acquires, constructs, and operates communities through its seasoned team of real estate professionals in offices across the United States. Mill Creek is building its portfolio in many of the nation’s most desirable markets in Seattle, Portland, the San Francisco Bay area, Southern California, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Houston, South Florida, Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, New York, and Boston. As of March 31, 2023, the company’s portfolio is comprised of 125 communities representing over 34,200 rental homes that are operating and/or under construction. For more information, please visit www.MillCreekPlaces.com.

Media Contact
Stephen Ursery
LinnellTaylor Marketing
stephen@linnelltaylor.com
303.682.3945

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SOURCE Mill Creek Residential

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A huge thunderstorm hovered over the Creek Fire on Saturday, shooting clouds of smoke into the stratosphere as flames ripped through the Sierra National Forest – and an obscure meteorological term briefly broke into the popular lexicon: pyrocumulonimbus.

This is the name for a rare formation that NASA called “the fire-breathing dragon of the clouds”. It occurs when the scorched air from a wildfire or volcano meets moist, floating air a few miles above the earth. The resulting mass is essentially a rainless thunderstorm sitting on top of a huge fire, said David Peterson, a meteorologist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey.

Scientists believe the pyrocumulonimbus that took shape over the Creek Fire could be the largest ever produced on U.S. soil.

The record-breaking cloud hurled huge amounts of pollutants into the Earth’s already warming atmosphere. Stunned passengers of a passing plane took photos that showed the peculiar shape and immense size of the cloud.

Today I flew from San Jose to Las Vegas with SWA and looked out my window and saw this cloud. I found it to be a cumulonimbus flammagenitus cloud, also known as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a type of cloud that forms over a heat source such as wildfire #CreekFire pic.twitter.com/HCqyWiHpNx

– Thalia Dockery (@SweetBrown_Shug) September 6, 2020

It was just one of the many anomalous events that kept all eyes on the sky in the past few weeks as the early arrival of the forest fire season spawned one bizarre sky event after another.

Like the thunderstorms of mid-August and the mix of fog and smoke that created an eerie orange sky over the Bay Area on Wednesday, weather forecasters say the Creek Fire pyro cloud heralds a new era of unpredictable – and increasingly volatile – climatic events.

The largest pyrocumulonimbus events ever recorded worldwide have all occurred in the past three years, a trend that suggests that as the forest fire season worsens, they may become much more common.

This could create more dangerous conditions for firefighters on the ground as the vacuum effect created by pyrocumulonimbus creates irregular winds that can disperse embers. Some are known to produce dry lightning or, in rare cases, tornado-like eddies over forest fires, although this does not appear to have happened with the Creek Fire.

The Creek Fire Pyrocumulonimbus formed a day after the fast moving fire was ignited for unknown reasons. The flames had covered 175,893 acres by Thursday and threatened more than 14,000 buildings in Fresno and Madera counties. The fire remains 0% contained and full containment is not expected before October.

The massive cloud formation broke up before the end of Labor Day weekend, but not before it generated an online following and caught the attention of a NASA satellite that captured the evolution of the cloud in a series of images released Tuesday .

NASA scientists analyzed the cloud of smoke at high altitude using the satellite data and compared it with the historical records. The results indicated that it was “one of the largest, if not the largest, pyrocumulonimbus events in the United States,” said Colin Seftor, atmospheric researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Pyrocumulonimbus clouds are easy to see from space as they suck in smoke and “become one of the dirtiest clouds on earth, much like volcanic eruptions,” said Peterson, who has studied the phenomenon extensively. “It looks like a giant chimney that picks up smoke from the ground and injects it at the height of a jet plane.”

The conditions for pyrocumulonimbus have been right over the past few weeks, Peterson said. He estimates that between five and ten wildfires have formed in California this year alone, but the size of the Creek Fire cloud stands out.

The size and distinctive shape of the cloud caught the attention of passengers on planes that flew near the fire on Saturday. Thalia Dockery was on a flight from San Jose to Las Vegas when she spotted the pyrocumulonimbus in an otherwise clear sky. After a shocked moment, she started taking pictures and went online to identify the cause of the oddly shaped ledge.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” said Dockery. “The shape reminded me of the giant tree of life at Disney World because it looked like it had roots.”

Kris Mattarochia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who covers the central Sierra Nevada, noticed the cloud’s cauliflower-like head and protruding triangular shapes that resembled a ship’s hull.

These characteristic shapes occur when strong winds and emitted smoke squeeze the top of the cloud and fan it horizontally.

“It looked like a Star Wars Star Destroyer,” said Mattarochia.

Scientists around the world have observed pyrocumulonimbus more frequently in recent years. Five of these occurred almost simultaneously in British Columbia, Canada in 2017. And just last year, the record breaking Australian bushfires produced a series of pyrocumulonimbus, the clouds of which were trapped in the stratosphere and circling the globe for months.

Scientists are only beginning to understand the phenomenon, which was first documented by the Naval Research Laboratory and the Canadian Meteorological Center in the late 1990s. The clouds’ plumes of smoke were believed to have originated from volcanic eruptions until scientists attributed them to a large wildfire.

Today researchers are working to track the long-term effects of the volcanic clouds, the smoke of which can circulate over the earth for weeks or months. Peterson was part of a groundbreaking NASA mission that last year flown a DC-8 aircraft into the center of the pyrocumulonimbus Williams Flats Fire in Washington state.

The team will present the results of the flight next year – just in time for another forest fire season.

Nora Mishanec is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @nmishanec

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WALNUT CREEK (CBS SF) – East Bay CHP officials are investigating a freeway shootout on Highway 24 in Walnut Creek on Wednesday that authorities said injured a woman driver.

A Facebook post from the CHP Contra Costa County office stated that at around 3:35 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, a CHP engine unit at an enforcement stop on Pleasant Hill Road north of Highway 24 in Lafayette was contacted by a black driver on Chevy Malibu who stopped to report that she was the victim of a highway shooting.

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Walnut Creek Freeway Shooting Investigation (CBS)

The woman said she sustained a gunshot wound on her leg and asked for medical help. She informed the officer that the confrontation involved a woman driving a Chrysler 300 sedan and was on the transition ramp from I-680 south to Highway 24 west.

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The victim said the woman who drove the suspicious Chrysler vehicle had a male passenger who shot her vehicle before the suspicious vehicle escaped the area.

The victim was riding in her vehicle with two teenage passengers who were not injured. The woman was taken to John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek with a non-life threatening injury to her leg.

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Authorities said this was an active investigation in collaboration with our CHP Golden Gate Division Investigative Services Unit, which will lead the investigation.

The post CHP Examine Hwy 24 Freeway Taking pictures in Walnut Creek – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The only real witnesses were the chickens.

Jon and Elizabeth Payne can guess how their home in Boulder Creek burned to the ground. How the fire might have spread through the house’s three levels — perhaps starting at the top floor, with the view of Eagle Rock that made it feel like a tree house, through their bathroom with the claw-foot tub. Then to the spacious, lodge-style living room, where the couple hosted bands for crowds of 60 people, sharing wine and songs until the early hours of the morning.

Next it might have spread to the bottom floor, which housed Elizabeth’s kiln and Jon’s just-finished recording studio, packed with beloved musical instruments. It was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream — a project into which Jon, a bassist and drummer, had poured over $100,000 in the last year alone.

But the 13 chickens who lived on the Santa Cruz County property are the only ones who know for sure what the fire looked like, because there was no room for them in the truck. There were already four adults, four dogs and a cat piled into the Paynes’ Toyota Tacoma when they evacuated on Aug. 18 through clouds of thick, dark smoke.

The lightning storm had been strangely beautiful when it started in the early-morning hours of Aug. 16. The Paynes stood in front of their house until 5 a.m. watching it, awed by nature’s power, by the bright cracks through the sky and the trees bowing in hot gusts of wind.

But just 48 hours later, the blaze caused by the lightning — now known as the CZU Lightning Complex Fire — had spread to more than 40,000 acres. By early evening, a helicopter swooped low over the Paynes’ property, with an indecipherable announcement over a megaphone: Jon only caught the word “evacuate.” Moments later, the couple’s phones chimed with texts from emergency services, confirming that it was time to go.

“It didn’t feel real,” he recalls, a month later. “I was definitely still in denial.”

Still, they grabbed the go-bags full of photographs and hard drives that have stayed by the front door every fire season since 2017. They had a brief, yelling meeting with their landmates — friends-slash-tenants who live in separate spaces on the property — and Elizabeth gathered supplies for the dogs. Before they all left, Jon ran down to the chicken coop and opened the door.

“I figured we’d be back in a day or two, so I just poured a bunch of food out,” he says. “And I told them, ‘Good luck.’”

It’s hard not to wax poetic about the Santa Cruz mountains. Serpentine roads wind through expanses of towering redwoods. There’s a mysticism to the place. Tight-knit, rugged communities — what’s left of old California’s logging towns — remain happily untethered from the tech campuses less than an hour’s drive away.

Approaching Boulder Creek on Highway 9, the beauty is breathtaking, even now, with the treetops turned crispy and sepia-toned. The closer you get to the Paynes’ property, the more burnt-out cars and hand-painted signs thanking first responders dot the roadside.

But for Jon Payne, it’s simply home. A fourth-generation Californian, Jon grew up in Burlingame; his grandfather was a firefighter with the San Francisco Fire Department. He started playing in bands around age 12, and began driving to Santa Cruz to see shows as a high school student.

After he graduated from UC Santa Cruz, he and his wife, Elizabeth — a ceramic artist and fellow Burlingame High alum, whose Californian lineage goes back to the Gold Rush — eventually bought a house in Felton, eight miles north of Santa Cruz, and stayed for seven years. Jon worked as a children’s therapist for Santa Cruz County, a job he’s held for 15 years now, while playing in a handful of Bay Area bands, most notably the psych-country trio Scary Little Friends and the folk-rock duo The Painted Horses. In the last year or so, he became a regular in the scene around San Rafael’s Terrapin Crossroads, occasionally sharing a stage with owner Phil Lesh.

But having his own space for music was always the dream. “I had this vision of having a little bit of land to build a recording studio, host shows, have musician friends come and play,” says Jon, 41. “And we wanted to have gardens, make a farm. I just wanted some space and some beauty.”

Left: Before it was destroyed by the CZU Lightning Complex fire, Jon and Elizabeth Payne’s home sat on 3 acres in Boulder Creek (Santa Cruz County). Right: Jon and Elizabeth Payne stand next to the three-story chimney amid the ruins of the home.

“Left: Courtesy Jon Payne; right: Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle”

In 2017, the Paynes found their space in a 2,600-square-foot house on 3 acres in Boulder Creek, high on a hill dense with brush, just a few miles east of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The beauty part would take some work: The last tenants had been weed growers who didn’t take care of the house, and the shag carpets reeked of cigarettes.

Still, it had good bones, with room for gardens and animals, friends and construction projects. Then they befriended the son of the original owner, who’d built the house in the ’70s. He mentioned that the living room already had nice acoustics, thanks to his dad, an opera singer. “You would see tears in his eyes from all the memories of growing up here,” says Jon. The family was overjoyed to hear a new owner making plans for music.

Over the past three years, the couple poured themselves into the property. They planted vegetables, tore out floors, leaned into life as homesteaders. A working artist since high school, Elizabeth finally had room to make a real ceramics studio, in a garage with high ceilings, natural light and plenty of storage.

“The house was a big undertaking, and we were always a little in over our heads,” says Elizabeth, 39. “But we put every penny we had into it, we worked really hard, and it was getting done.”

The neighbors were far enough away that noise was never an issue, so the living room quickly became a focal point for music. A handful of friends recorded albums there, and as soon as the Paynes began hosting shows, the room became a fixture for local indie-rock, folk and alt-country artists like Tim Bluhm, the Sam Chase, and the T Sisters.

“It was better than any other house show I’ve ever played, because you could tell the audience felt so connected to what they were building there,” says Sam Chase, a longtime San Francisco musician, of his sold-out performance at the house in May 2018. “It wasn’t just that the property was beautiful, which it was. It was that they were so excited to share it, to have everyone experience it, to make it this home for the broader music community.”

To make ends meet, the Paynes also put two bedrooms in the main house on Airbnb. Over time, a handful of friends and fellow artists became longer-term tenants as well: a woodworker moved into the small separate cabin on the property; another friend set up a trailer, and a local photographer rented an Airstream. In the spring, after the Paynes stopped running the Airbnb due to COVID-19, that space became home to Jon’s childhood friend Chris Jones, as the two embarked on their new band, Wolf Jett.

COVID, of course, derailed those plans as well. With shows canceled, the pair decided live-streaming wasn’t their style, and instead put their energy into building a recording studio. After a few months of quarantine, they figured, Wolf Jett could emerge back onto the live circuit with a whole new album.

Meanwhile, life at the house slowed to a leisurely pace: Jon would do tele-therapy sessions, garden, work on the house. Without the rental to manage, Elizabeth had more time for her art. There were six of them on the property, providing much-needed company while they sheltered in place; they’d watch movies on the projector or relax in the ceramic-lined hot tub that looked out at the mountains.

Best of all, Jon could play music whenever he wanted. Fellow artists would sometimes tell him he was living the dream. He put the finishing touches on the studio one week before the lightning storm.

“It felt,” he says in retrospect, “too good to be true.”

Jon Payne (right) and Chris Jones, his band mate in Wolf Jett, sift through the wreckage of Jon and Elizabeth Payne’s house in Boulder Creek.

Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle

In the blurry, sleepless days after they evacuated but before the Paynes knew their house was gone, Jon told Elizabeth they were moving to Hawaii. He can’t remember if the conversation happened as they set up camp at a friend’s house in Felton, or a day later, when Felton too had to evacuate, and they moved to a hotel by the San Francisco airport. (They decided not to go to either of their parents’ homes in Burlingame, worried about their age and the virus.)

“It rains in Hawaii; you don’t have to worry about fires,” Jon told his wife. But they both knew it was a joke: “I love where we live so much.”

Walking the property with him now, there is no question of his reverence for this place: He points out the netting he started attaching to the hillside as soon as they could sneak back in, to help mitigate soil erosion and landslides when the rains come. He murmurs approvingly at the sight of tiny green leaves sprouting from a blackened tree stump. He still thinks about the lone fawn he saw crossing an ash-covered street on their first trip back here, and worries about the “emaciated” bobcat who let him get way too close a few days later (he put out food and water, and notified Native Animal Rescue in Santa Cruz).

It was a similar animal, Jon can guess, that took nine of his chickens, including his beloved rooster, Willy. They all survived the fire, but a few weeks ago, he returned to work on the place and found remnants of a massacre. He’s trying not to feel too sad about that one; at least, he thinks, they were food for something hungry.

Other losses have been harder to justify. The three-story chimney is all that remains of the main house, rising almost obscenely from the rubble. A metal bin contains odd items the couple have been able to recover: a ceramic bowl with two birds that lived on Elizabeth’s bedside table and held her rings. A somehow perfectly preserved teacup her grandmother brought over from England.

A blackened but apparently fireproof filing cabinet contains deeds and other paperwork, which have been crucial in communicating with the insurance company. Of course, if he had to choose between paperwork and his gear — including three vintage drum sets, a recently restored Leslie speaker, a Wurlitzer piano that Norah Jones once played when they shared a stage in Santa Cruz, and a Fender guitar amp that belonged to a friend’s father who passed away — “I’d probably go with my gear,” Jon notes dryly. “But hey, at least we don’t have to go to the DMV.”

Elizabeth’s ceramics studio is gone, and if not for her recent show at Boulder Creek’s Lille Aeske Arthouse, she would have lost years of work: Half her pieces were still installed at the gallery when the fire broke out, and half were safely packed in her car.

Willy Tea Taylor played at one of the house shows at Jon Payne’s Boulder Creek home. The Paynes had just finished adding a recording studio to the property before it burned in the CZU Lightning Complex fire in August.

Courtesy Jon Payne

Instead, she finds herself thinking about the living room with the big fireplace: the cozy gatherings and late nights full of music, when she would run around making sure people were fed. She liked having room for people to stay over — like her dad, who passed away in 2018. He loved coming to shows and spent his last Christmas at the house with family.

“We’re not really big holiday people, but I liked doing the lights,” she says. “We had these cool old glass ornaments from the ’40s and ’50s that belonged to Jon’s grandma, and we did these big family dinners. Between COVID and (the fire), it’s hard to think about the holidays coming and not being able to do that.” The practical mingles with the emotional when she thinks about what’s gone — midsentence, she remembers she needs to buy new winter clothes.

Still, when the Paynes describe what they lost, the story quickly veers outward: up the hill toward their neighbors who didn’t have insurance, who lost homes that housed multiple generations, including an 86-year-old woman who bought her place 50 years ago. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire consumed nearly 1,500 structures, including more than 900 homes. (Some 5,228 residential buildings were destroyed by California fires in August through October of this year alone.) Jon and Elizabeth Payne know exactly how fortunate they are, because they are in close, regular contact with those who were much less so.

These residents now all belong to a club that nobody wants to join: the people displaced by fire, all over the West Coast, currently deciding whether to stay or move elsewhere — knowing full well this will happen again.

The Paynes’ decision is already made.

“I belong here,” Jon says of their plans to rebuild on the property, and in an instant, it’s clear that he loves California the way people born here love California. Which is to say, all of it, innately and unconditionally — the good, the bad, the expensive and the on fire. Leaving was never really on the table.

“Every once in a while we do the math” on the financials of moving, offers Elizabeth. “But honestly, I can’t think of anywhere else I want to go.”

In recent weeks, some people have tried to reassure the Paynes that fire won’t affect the area again for many years, but they’re not so sure. Look at Paradise, for example. Jon’s uncle, a firefighter in Santa Rosa, has had to evacuate too many times over the past few years for them to think lightning won’t, quite literally, strike twice.

“It’s really sad and scary to think that it may just become too dangerous to live in this area,” says Jon. “And it’s infuriating when politics get involved and (leaders) don’t want to look at the real problem, which is that the climate is changing, and we need to look at the science and take real steps to combat that.”

There are, to be sure, circumstances that made the choice to stay easier for them than most: They are young, able-bodied, employed, child-free. They have insurance. Still, it would have been a harder decision were it not for their friends. The cabin survived the fire, and their landmates are staying put; Kevin, the woodworker, is hard at work on the little freestanding cob house he and Jon started building last year, so Jon and Elizabeth can live there while they make plans for the main house. Dozens of other friends have shown up to sift through rubble, lend construction equipment or simply bring them dinner.

In September, Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley hosted a live-streamed concert fundraiser for the Paynes, with bands like the Mother Hips, the Brothers Comatose and Goodnight, Texas. “It was a real shock wave through the music community when that house burned down,” says Sam Chase. “I think a lot of people felt like they had lost something special.” As of this writing, a GoFundMe has raised more than $21,000 for the couple.

“It’s honestly been restoring my faith in people,” says Jon. “Between politics and the way the country is right now … it’s been a reminder that people are still good-hearted, and a reminder of how much we need community.”

Left: A destroyed piano in the house. Right: A box of melted demo tapes. Most of Payne’s recent music was backed up digitally, but it’s unclear whether copies of his early work exists.Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle

A few weeks ago, Jon mentioned to a friend that he’d like to play music one last time at his old house before the rubble got cleared away. Within days, there was a video shoot planned, with perfect strangers donating equipment, labor and time. They showed up with a U-Haul full of stuff — a rented track, expensive cameras — that Jon wouldn’t be able to pay for even under normal circumstances. Jon and his bandmates set up in the old living room, planting mike stands on top of month-old ash.

“I was thinking this is all going to be cleaned up soon, and I wanted to document it,” says Jon. “As much as I’d like to wipe it away and not think about it, this is a big part of our story.”

As a therapist, he knows about grief and its stages, and lately he is moving toward acceptance. There’s a lot to look forward to: The Paynes get to build a new place from scratch, with more modern, fire-resistant methods. He’s thinking about an outdoor stage for shows; the son of the original owner, who owns a local construction company, is weighing in on the design. He’s even getting new chickens from a friend who’s raising chicks right now, and will bring over nine when they’re old enough.

But for that afternoon, he let himself stay there, in the present, in the ruins of his old life, and think about what was gone forever. And then he sat down behind the drum kit and played.

Emma Silvers is a San Francisco writer. Email: culture@sfchronicle.com

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