Hardy as Good as his Name after Foley Lakes Fire

Bill Hardy and his granddaughter take a break from searching out usable items left amongst the ruins of their home. The pair munched on strawberries together on a really hard day. Hardy said neighbor Mary Hoffman lent him some long-sleeved shirts on Thursday to keep him warm while he pushed through the piles of rubble in the heavy wind. Hardy’s daughter, Ashley, also lived in the home.

By Tom Peterson

You have to be careful where you step when combing the wreckage of a burned home. Nails and staples stick out of charred boards and threaten to pierce a rubber soul and the skin within.

Broken boards stick up like punji sticks, and a slip and trip is as sure as a wobbly misstep.

Blackened dressers, heaters, books, clothes, everything is jumbled up in piles that can collapse or tumble on you.

It was within this wreckage that Bill and Ashley Hardy, Antonio and Jobany Balderrama and friend Shyann Cook found themselves on Friday, searching for something, anything to salvage from their destroyed home in Foley Lake in Chenowith. 

Bill Hardy’s scrapbook of his military career in the Air Force lies amongst the rubble of his home in Foley Lakes. He and his roommates Jobany and Antonio Balderrama are putting their lives back together after a fire reduced their lives’ possessions to rubble on Wednesday. Jobany, above, moves a board looking to salvage personal items.

Bill Hardy sat on a blackened gun cabinet and looked into the charred remains. 

Everything he owned was in that house.

Almost.

“I still got my sense of humor. It’s all I got left. Couldn't burn that,” he said. 

Hardy, a former forklift driver at Cardinal Glass and homogenizing furnace operator at the Northwest Aluminum plant, is 67 years old.

He went on disability after major back surgery in 2013. He is fighting two forms of cancer - skin and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma leukemia. He also has diabetes and a heart condition. 

His day started in a hotel room this morning paid for by the American Red Cross. He took 8 pills and an insulin shot to combat his afflictions. He will end his day with four more pills and another prick.

He had no insurance on his home.

He applied several times to buy protection for the 1976 double-wide, but he said it never got accomplished. Agents did not call him back. He should have tried harder, he said looking back.

Hardy had some luck on Thursday and recovered his coin collection.

“My dad used to pick me up coins,” he said. “It was something we did together. My mom’s wedding ring was in the gun safe. My grandfather's pocket watch is in there too.”

Hardy said the items were like songs and when he looked at them, they took him to a special time and place - moments with his family. 

The vast history of his life though now lay in tatters. Scrapbooks scorched soggy from water hoses.

How is he getting through it?

“One day at a time,” he said. “Well, sometimes I wonder. I just got to figure out how to get things fixed up again. I’m not going to sit around and cry about it. I’ve done that before, and I've got friends that are reaching out.”

Prior to the fire on Wednesday, Hardy said he had replaced a circuit breaker in the home and it appeared to be working.

But when he looked down the hallway, he saw a recliner chair on fire in the living room.

He threw two buckets of water on it without effect. The house was filling with thick black smoke, and Bill has trouble breathing.

Jobany discovered a sword and small knife that survived the fire. Unfortunately, his XBox1 X Taco Bell Limited Edition gaming unit did not. He tossed it to the pile in disgust. it was a collector’s item, he said.

He and Jobany, the only other person in the house, got out as fast as they could.

“It’s not good for me to breath stuff like that,” Hardy said. “In ten minutes, the whole place was in flames.”

Hardy said the blaze was too much for a neighbor’s garden hose, and he and Jobany watched helplessly as the flames and plumes of thick black smoke enveloped the house.

The fire quickly spread from the living room and entered the attic and lit the roof, which eventually collapsed.

Firefighters from Dallesport and Mosier assisted Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue in fighting the blaze that started shortly before noon. 

“We had to take a defensive strategy,” said Assistant Chief David Jenkins with  Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue. “The home was almost a total loss.”

“There was nothing they could have done at that point,” Hardy said.

Jobany Balderrama holds out the Mexican flag he salvaged from the fire. He and his brother Antonio grew up in Maupin and were collectors of video games and YU-GI-OH! cards. Antonio also recovered his Bible from the fire.

They both work at Oregon Cherry Growers in The Dalles.

A total of four engines, two water trucks and three chiefs were on the fire with a total of 17 staff.

The City of The Dalles brought in an excavator and moved the burning pieces around so that firefighters could douse the hidden flames and embers. 

The damage was so severe, investigators said there was no chance of pinpointing the cause.

When Bill and his family were able to inspect the wreckage, Hardy said they found the family cat, Velcro, named for jumping and sticking to a vertical mattress when she was a kitten.

The cat had perished trying to save its litter of week-old kittens. It was found with one of the little furballs in its mouth.

“She did not want to leave those kittens,” he said. “But the smoke got to her.”

It’s pure heartbreak.

Hardy has been through scrapes before and he continues to persevere. The Rowena wildfire burned his porch and windows several years back. A year ago, his heart went to 300 beats per minute and he was flown to Portland via LifeFlight to receive an emergency defibrillator replacement.

And he keeps getting back up.

“Bring it in with you and take it out with you,” he said of memories. “You might get shook up here and there but… ”

Bills voiced just trailed off. 

Bills daughter Ashely has set up a personal emergency fundraiser on her Facebook Account. Click here. 

Shyann Cook will also be setting up a fundraiser on her Facebook as well for Antonio and Jobany Balderrama. Check here.

Hardy holds ‘Father Goose’ a good friend at his home in Foley Lakes. “He’s my alarm system,” he said. The goose kept grabbing Hardy’s pant leg and would not let go, like he knew something was afoot. Hardy eventually gave the goose a bath in the nearby pond and went back to sorting the pile.