This family is starting over after losing 'everything' in Wooldridge wildfire

WOOLDRIDGE — Jessica McComb couldn't bring herself to look at her dogs.

McComb was resting at her mother-in-law's place in Boonville after spending several gut-wrenching days examining what, if anything, remained of her family's belongings in the aftermath of the Oct. 22 wildfire that swept through the Village of Wooldridge, ravaging homes and destroying entire buildings in its path.

McComb lived in the small central Missouri town with her husband and their children. They lost everything material. But what hurt the most was the loss of their pet dog Olaf, who died in the fire.

"I can't look at them," Jessica said Wednesday of her remaining pets. "We're missing somebody."

In Wooldridge, which lists a population of less than 100 people, there used to be a small area of homes on Main Street. The McCombs moved into theirs in April 2021. Eight days ago, the house was gone in barely an instant.

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A natural cover fire — one of many across mid-Missouri recently but by far the largest — created heavy smoke that became a hazard to weekend travelers on nearby Interstate 70, prompting the closure of the major roadway for about two hours the Saturday evening of the blaze. Over 4,000 acres burned and more than a dozen homes were destroyed.

The whirlwind of events left the McComb family and other residents with the pain of being uprooted.

The Monday after the fire, the McCombs returned and viewed the scene. They were greeted by ashes where their home used to stand, charred soil and hollowed-out vehicles.

The days, hours and even minutes have been a blur for the McCombs.

The family is starting over.

"It's something to say, though, that we can have tragedy and still be OK with the reality of it," Jessica said. "For us, having the reality and being OK with this has to happen."

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The McComb family had little rest even before the fire flipped their lives upside down.

Jessica and her husband, Emmanuel, work as Uber drivers in Columbia to make extra money, she said. They were among the cars driving around late on the night of Oct. 21, when shots were fired downtown, injuring three people, including a University of Missouri student. It was already a harrowing time.

They drove until 6 a.m. the next day and then coached soccer at the YMCA in Boonville for five more hours, she said. Then the fire broke out, and friends and family kept checking on them to make sure they were safe.

Racing back to their Wooldridge home, the McCombs found the town on fire. The fire spread mercilessly in an area that was already suffering from the standing drought around the region. Their concern immediately went to the animals the McComb family kept at their home: four goats, six dogs, as well as chickens, ducks and doves.

Jessica went to their home to look for the animals, and the house was already gone. Firefighters kept Jessica from approaching too close to the home for safety reasons, and she had to plead for anyone to save the animals, she said.

She is no stranger to the wrath of fire.

Her childhood home caught on fire when she was little, she said. She still recalls the extreme heat and the unbearable pain when she put her hand on the heat radiation, which pulled skin right off her hand.

"We sat here and we watched this fire burn, and they were refusing to let me in," Jessica said. "It was like a replay all over my body, I felt the trauma all over. And that's why it did not stop me from coming into the fire and getting my animals."

First responders saved most of the goats, dogs, chickens, ducks and doves. However, doves named Speckles and Tux passed away in the flames, along with Olaf.

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Two days after the fire, when the family returned to the site of their home, they started cleaning to see if anything was salvageable. They met with insurance companies that came to survey the damage.

Their top priority, however, was to ensure Olaf, Speckles and Tux were properly laid to rest.

Emmanuel took turns digging a grave in the front yard with the McCombs' sons Malachi, 13, and Titus, 9. Jessica crafted a grave marker with two pieces of wood left from the fire. She wrote "Olaf" on the front of the marker.

"It's devastating," Emmanuel said Monday.

Once the family dug deep enough, they needed to hurry. The blanket Olaf was wrapped in began to catch fire because he was still warm from the blaze.

Once they laid Olaf, Speckles and Tux to rest, Emmanuel and Jessica began to cry. Jessica held onto Emmanuel tight.

Then it began to downpour rain.

In the aftermath, the McCombs have to try and figure out how to begin again. That was made more difficult as the family was told they couldn't rebuild their house on the same land because of how it was a flood risk, they said. Massive flooding has devastated the Wooldridge area before.

Members of the Boonville community have come to their aid and helped with the healing process, the family said. Jessica said the team they were coaching against brought them clothes. Other people brought meals.

A GoFundMe campaign to help the McComb family has been started at www.gofundme.com/f/wooldridge-mo-fire-took-it-all-trying-to-recover.

"Until you lose everything, you don't realize what you have," Jessica wrote in an online post.

The road to recovery will be long, but it has begun. The McCombs have come to accept the tragedy. And they are continually reminded of the dog they remember for being gentle, smiling all the time and giving warm hugs.

"We have to be OK with it," Jessica said. "When I decided I was OK with it was when a rainbow came out."

To Jessica, that rainbow was Olaf.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Family starts over after losing home, pets in Wooldridge wildfire