Emergency RV is Providing Shelter for Displaced Survivors of Natural Disasters

We’ll be talking with Emergency RV founder, Woody Faircloth, in a multi-part series. To learn more about Emergency RV and how you can help, please visit the EmergencyRV website.

On November 8, 2018, and for several days following, a father and his six-year old daughter sat in the living room of their Denver, Colorado home and watched in horror as news and images of the deadliest wildfire in California history spilled from their flatscreen tv. The stories were sobering. More than 50,000 people displaced and caught up in a horrific evacuation. At least 85 people dead, unable to escape the flames. Hundreds of people were missing. Nineteen-thousand structures destroyed. In a matter or 24 hours, an entire town and its surrounding areas were gone, and scores of people had lost everything.

Woody Faircloth and his daughter had no ties to Paradise, California. They had no friends or family living there. They had never visited the quaint and historical town, never witnessed the warmth of the people, knew nothing of the small community thriving there. They never swam in the magnificent serpentine rivers, attended a concert in the park, bought their vegetables at the local farmer’s market – in fact, Faircloth “had to look up the location to find the nearest city on Craigslist” because he had never heard of it before.

Inspired by those who lost everything in the fire, Woody Faircloth and his daughter embarked on an incredible journey to help one family affected by the fire. No one could have anticipated the impact and reverberations of that one kind act.

The following interview reveals a tale of remarkable empathy and compassion, but it is also so much more. It is a story of a father taking hold of young girl’s tiny hand and taking a giant leap off a cliff into the unknown. It’s a recollection of events that lined up in some kind of divine or other-worldly way. It is a story of cynicism blossomed into purpose and faith.

It is the utmost privilege of Colorado Teardrop to share this very personal interview of Woody Faircloth, RV4CampfireFamily, Inc. – now doing business as EmergencyRV.org – a non-profit dedicated to helping first responders and those affected by wildfires and other natural disasters.

LAUREL HUNTER: You live in Denver, more than a thousand miles from Paradise. I’m so curious. Do you have a connection to Paradise? Why did the Camp Fire speak so loudly to you?

WOODY FAIRCLOTH: You know, I don’t have a connection at all. I’m a bit of a weather buff, so I was kind of keeping an eye on the fires, and the information that was coming out on the Camp Fire was unbelievable. Fifty-thousand people were displaced, and we saw on the news that fifty or more first responders had lost their homes. The whole situation really blew me away.

LH: What made you decide to help?

WF: It was just before Thanksgiving and it was just going to be me and my youngest daughter for the holiday. I have three other grown children, and I was feeling a bit nostalgic – past holidays were always these big family filled weeks, and this time it was just me and Luna. I had the week off of work and she had the week off of school and we were following the fires on the news and there was a story about a guy who was able to start up a broken-down RV on the side of his house and escape the fire. His house burned down, of course, but he kept talking about how grateful he was to have a place to call home for Thanksgiving in the form of this RV.

It was like a lightning bolt. It was just at a no-brainer. There are RVs everywhere. I thought, surely we can find one RV and go on a road trip to Paradise and give it to one family who’d lost their home in the fire, so they could have the Thanksgiving that I guess I was kind of longing for myself.

LH: What happened next?

WF: I’d never been in an RV before in my life, so I just started looking at Craigslist and started emailing everybody who was selling motorhomes that looked like they could actually make the trip to California. I said, hey, my six-year-old and I are looking for an RV to drive to California to deliver to a family who lost a home. I emailed probably 150 people selling RVs, and one guy got back to me. He said, “Hey, I love what you’re doing. I can’t donate or give it to you, but I’ll sell you the RV for 2500 bucks.” And I was like, let’s do it! We met him on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, gave him the money, and he showed us how to operate it. Then we just hopped in and started driving to California.

Coincidentally, right before we left to get the RV, a friend of mine who works in media relations called to ask what we were doing for Thanksgiving. I told her and she said, “Oh, my God – that story needs to be told!” I said, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but we don’t have time – we’ve got to go.” But she asked if we could wait until 10 a.m. because she wanted a news crew to come and do a story. I told her, look, we are leaving at ten! At ten-minutes-to-ten they got there and did a little story about us.

LH: Then what?

So, we pick up the RV and we’re driving out of Denver and there was a big snowstorm as we went into the mountains. This RV had windshield wipers like popsicle sticks, and we were heading up the biggest hill of the who whole trip. I pulled over to check the engine and see how things were going and the radiator was overheating and completely pouring out water. I thought, well, it was a great idea, but this is over! There was no way to find this particular old radiator to replace the day before Thanksgiving, so I called the guy who sold it to me and said, “Hey, you sold me a lemon!” He said, “No, no, no – I just really filled up all the fluids because you’ve got that little girl and I didn’t want you breaking down.” And it was just like he said. “Just turn on the heater and keep driving and it’ll cool down.” So, we turned on the heater and kept driving and, sure enough, it worked. We were on our way.

LH: How did you figure out who was going to get the RV?

WF: We were in the middle of nowhere in Utah, and I asked a guy at a gas station if we could sleep out back in the RV, and he said we could. So, we parked, and that night I posted about what we were doing on one of the fire-relief Facebook groups. I just said, “Hey I’m just a dad from Denver. My daughter and I are driving this RV. We’re looking for a first responder or fire survivor who needs shelter. Just tell us a little bit about your situation and we’ll consider you.”

And then things got crazy. My phone just melted. I think I got hundreds of emails. By the time we got to Las Vegas, we were contacted by a television station out there who wanted to do a story. Word was getting out about what we were doing.

(To be continued…)

This multi-part series is authored by Laurel Hunter, a freelance creative writer with over 20 years of experience covering a broad range of topics. She and her family are 2018 Camp Fire survivors who have since relocated to the Pacific Northwest Olympic Peninsula.