SILVERADO, Calif. — The gate that leads up to Rancho Soñado still stands, but the place where Stephanie Smith worked and called home did not.
"When my husband and I came back, the word horrifying kept coming to me," said Stephanie Smith, operations manager for the Orange County Department of Education’s Inside the Outdoors program. "That was a personal feeling of what our future looks like in seeing our home of 20 years and just the memories we have made."
What You Need To Know
- Rancho Soñado is a beloved outdoor education camp for children in Orange County
- Two out of the three structures at Rancho Soñado survived the Bond Fire
- The family who took care of the ranch evacuated with their family pets
- The Orange County Department of Education is asking the community to help rebuild the camp
Smith joined the Inside the Outdoors program 21 years ago. She and her husband moved to the site twenty years ago, where they raised their twin daughters.
In October, they evacuated for the Silverado Fire and then again for the Bond Fire in December.
“My family physically left with a dog and a cat, my kids' laundry basket of clothes and two school backpacks,” she said.
The operations manager notified the program’s evacuation team about the order that came down for the Bond Fire and asked them to come help save the animals on the ranch, but the fire came quickly. It destroyed all but one structure, and most of the animals on site.
"We got about two miles down the road before we realized we need to turn back," said Holly Steele, an administrator in educational services for Inside the Outdoors. "It wan’t safe to proceed any further."
Steele explained that the program addresses educational inequities that many children face.
"For some of our children, this is the first and maybe only outdoor space that they have a chance to visit," she said. "They come here and they think they’re in the mountains, and it’s quite an incredible experience for our youth. We really want to make sure that every child in Orange County we serve, no matter where they live, have a chance to visit a place like this."
The county’s Department of Education is working to bring the ranch back to life, but it will take time. Smith added that despite what’s happening to her personally, she and her team still keep the program alive through a virtual space.
"That gives us a sense of normal, and it gives us a sense of why," she said. "Our 'why' is the students."
While it’s difficult for the Orange County Department of Education to know when the structures will be rebuilt or the site will be rehabbed, the department did set up a GoFundMe page to help support the Inside the Outdoors program. A portion of the money raised will go to Stephanie Smith and her family who lost everything, in hopes they will have a chance to rebuild their lives.