Community remembers Golden Gate Estates fire two years later

With so many fires popping up in Southwest Florida, now is a great time to have a game plan for if a fire starts near your home.

Those who live in Golden Gate Estates know what loss looks like. It looks like insulation on living room floors. It looks like heaps of metal where houses should be.

It has been two years since the folks who live on 14th Avenue SE have seen heard loss close to them. But, when they watch the news and see fires rip through townhomes and brush in Punta Gorda and other parts of Charlotte County.

Lee Davis says he understands what those in Charlotte County are going through. “I can empathize with that because you don’t know, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t come and move everything out of your house. It’s a fire, and there’s no way to get away from it,” Davis said.

By all accounts, Davis is a lucky man. He lives in Golden Gates Estates, and his home hasn’t caught fire yet. But, in 2020, it came dangerously close.

“All the windows, they cracked and split and fell out, and how the fire didn’t get in the house, firemen did that,” Davis said.

Trees burned just feet away from his home. An ember even fell onto his wooden porch. he keeps the hole it left there. “Sentimental reasons, I guess. I’m gonna replace it eventually. I’m not going to sell a house with a hole in it,” said Davis.

Every day he’s reminded of what happened. And that makes it tough to leave, and even tougher to leave behind 17-year-old Charlie, his dog. “I do worry about him. The guy over here lost two dogs,” Davis said.

And the dogs aren’t all his neighbors lost. From his backyard, Lee could see all that was left of their home. “The first thing I thought was ‘are they in there?’ because there were three cars burnt to a crisp. I went out with my wife and the firefighter down the street said ‘no there’s no people but a dead animal inside we can see,'” said Davis.

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