Reporter has good news

Linda Prien of Petaluma has a second home in the Mount Olympia area within the fire zone. She and her three boys, ages 16, 14 and 12, were at the beach today when the evacuation came. They were not allowed to return home.

Prien tried to sneak in to the fire zone with a Mountain Democrat reporter today but was asked by officials to get out of the car because she wasn't a journalist. As Prien sat on the corner waiting for the reporter to return, she was certain that her home had burned.

"I was sitting on the corner waiting for them to come get me, and I knew it was burned," she said. "I thought, 'It's time to start over.' "

But the reporter returned with good news: The house was fine. They had taken a photo of the house to show her. The bad news was that more than three-quarters of the houses in the neighborhood had burned.

"I just feel for my neighbors," Prien said. "We're surrounded by grass. Maybe that helped."

-- Lee Romney