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This story was originally published by HuffPost and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Rod Harper walked across a carpet of ash, nails, and broken glass to the burned-out skeletons of two of his vehicles. On the ground, several pools of melted aluminum stood out against the scorched earth.

The Pawnee Fire was so hot when it ripped through his property in Northern California’s Lake County late Saturday that it liquified the cars’ wheels. The hardened flows were all that remained.

Harper, 57, said he would have stayed and fought to save his home, against the order of local authorities. But his wife, Katy Brogan, is recovering from a hip replacement, and he needed to make sure she made it to a safe location.

“You might put your own life on black or red,” he said. “But not your wife and kids.”

Trying to stick it out could have cost him far more than he lost. Not long after evacuating Saturday, Harper got word that his house was fully engulfed. He returned home after California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials lifted an evacuation order for the area midday Tuesday. HuffPost found him standing in front of his razed home, the crumpled remains of kitchen appliances and a spring bed poking out of the rubble behind him.

Along with his home, Harper lost two new business ventures: a food truck that he recently began, serving barbecue, and a trailer he turned into a portable coffee shop. They were supposed to be his new chapter in life.