SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Kristy Militello’s family wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the phone call from a long-lost friend saying they needed to leave their Santa Rosa home. Right. Now.

Militello couldn’t find her purse. Her husband wasn’t even wearing shoes, but they grabbed their six-year-old daughter and their dog and left everything else behind, driving through clouds of ash, and telephone wires that were flapping in the hurricane-strength wind, dodging tree branches as they were ripped from their trunks.

“It was like we were being bombed,” Militello said of the harrowing drive to her parents’ house, 20 minutes south. “The whole sky was on fire. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I just knew at that moment that I was never coming home.”

Like 5,000 other families that October 2017 night, the Militellos lost their home to the Tubbs Fire, which, at its peak, was ravaging two football fields of acreage every second. 

“There’s two immediate issues when your house burns down: One, where am I going to sleep tonight? And then your long-term housing,” said Militello, who evacuated to her parents’ house only to be evacuated again later that same night, at 4 a.m.

In the three years since the Militellos lost their home, they have lived in ten different places, starting with hotels in the Santa Rosa area, then rentals heading south along the coast from Sausalito to Carmel to Santa Barbara and eventually San Diego, where they have since bought a new home.

“I thought this fire, my fire, that’ll never happen again,” she said. “But Santa Rosa has had four major fires in three years. This issue is not going away.”

Most recently, the Glass Fire in Sonoma and Napa Counties burned almost 1,900 structures before it was fully contained Oct. 20. 

Militello’s experience with the Tubbs Fire has prompted her support for the multi-faceted ballot initiative, Prop 19. Also known as the Property Tax Transfers, Exemptions, and Revenue for Wildfire Agencies and Counties Amendment, Prop 19 would allow eligible homeowners to transfer their tax assessments anywhere within the state and also to increase the number of times a person over the age of 55 or with severe disabilities can transfer their tax assessments. 

In addition, it would require that the property tax on inherited homes not used as an individual’s primary residence be reassessed at market value when transferred. The additional revenue, or net savings, from the resulting tax assessments would fund wildfire agencies and counties. Analysts estimate the additional revenues for fire protection could be tens of millions of dollars per year.

“Fire services need more resources, and Prop 19 would help that,” said Militelli, who recalled seeing the first responders and fire trucks as she was evacuating her home in Santa Rosa and thinking, “They had this look in their eyes like they didn’t even know what to do. It wasn’t a typical wildfire. It had created its own weather pattern and was more of a firestorm. There was no fighting it.”

Unlike a lot of families who lost the homes they’d owned for years to wildfires and had to move into properties where they are subject to higher, market-rate tax assessments, the Militellis have been able to keep their Santa Rosa property tax rate because San Diego has already adopted a similar provision to Prop 19. 

But her parents are stuck, she said. They had already used California’s one-time tax assessment transfer from a $300,000 house to buy a $600,000 home in Rohnert Park that has since doubled in value. If they also relocate to San Diego to be closer to their granddaughter, their tax assessment on a new home would quadruple, Militelli said.

“My parents are there growing old alone, and they can’t move,” she said. “They’re not wealthy to be able to pay $15,000 more in property taxes a year.”

Under current California law, eligible homeowners are only able to transfer their tax assessments within counties and to homes of equal or lesser market value; persons over 55 years old or with severe disabilities can transfer their tax assessments only once; and properties transferred from parent to child or grandparent to child can retain the tax assessments on an inherited home, even if they do not use it as a principal residence. 

“A lot of people ask, ‘How can I help you?’ This is it,” Militelli said of Prop 19. 

Prop 19 is supported by the California Democratic Party’s Gov. Gavin Newsom; unions, including the California Nurses Assn. and California Professional Firefighters; and multiple organizations, including the California Association of Realtors and California Black Chamber of Commerce. It is opposed by four groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Family Business Association of California.

A Spectrum News/Ipsos poll earlier this month found that 47% of Californians, including 42% of L.A.-area residents, support personally paying more in taxes to fund wildfire prevention. Still, Prop 19 is in an extremely tight race. An October 28 poll from Capitol Weekly found that 49% of Californians support Prop 19, and 51% oppose it.