Blaze is latest in man's misfortune

Christian Kimbrough can’t seem to catch a break.

A fire that destroyed a converted barn and garage Saturday morning is the latest of a series of mishaps for the Foothill Road resident.

Last year, Kimbrough, 83, narrowly missed being crushed when a pine tree fell on his house.

The 100-foot-tall tree was knocked down by a severe wind storm and caused more than $20,000 worth of damage to his house.

Then, when cutting down some of the others trees in his backyard, to prevent it from happening again, Kimbrough started suffering from chest congestion. Cancerous cells were found in his chest and his right lung was removed. That’s not to mention the other chest pains and panic attacks since he moved into the home 4 1/2 years ago.

“Yeah, believe it or not, I’m thinking I might be cursed,” Kimbrough said. “I asked some guys to pray for me and I’m waiting to see if I should leave this place or not. I’m not sure if I’ll make it to my 84th birthday at this rate.”

He’s joking, but there is an air of concern as well.

The building that burned had contained many expensive personal items, but perhaps more importantly a lot of antiques with sentimental value.

Kimbrough is waiting for an insurance adjuster to tell him the final value, but he estimates the building itself was worth probably $60,000, not to mention the two Harley-Davidson motorcycles, new all-terrain vehicle and gun safe that burned up inside the barn.

“My wife’s studio was in there, and a lot of antiques from her mother and grandmother,” he said. “Once we moved out here, just one thing after another happened.”

The two-story barn, a large building at 60 feet by 40 feet, caught fire Saturday morning. Kimbrough had been out in the building that morning and had started a fire in a wood-burning stove. In the ashes of the building, the stove was closed tight. He said he thinks that could have been the cause but didn’t rule out faulty wiring.

He was in his kitchen enjoying coffee and breakfast when a loud knock came at the door.

“Chris, your garage is on fire!” Came the call.

It was the Kimbrough’s neighbor. She had seen the smoke from her house and hustled to the neighbor’s house after calling the fire department.

It just so happened that one of the Creston Fire Department’s captains, Tom Schuster, lives next door.

He has been the first responder several times when Kimbrough had his recent run of bad luck.

“I try and keep his driveway plowed. He’s getting up there in years and I just try to help,” Schuster said.

Schuster’s wife alerted the Kimbroughs to the fire.

Kathy, Christian’s wife, said how thankful she was for neighbors like the Schusters. But even good neighbors couldn’t make up for the fact that decades worth of memories were lost in the inferno.

“It was coming out all around the roof and through the ceiling,” Kimbrough said of the fire. “I was really surprised, but then I was hurt. It’s so frustrating.”

By the time the fire department put out the flames, the building was a total loss. Schuster said everything in the building was either burned or heavily damaged by smoke.

“There isn’t much storage space in the log cabin,” Kimbrough said. “So we had everything we don’t use every day in there.”

Kimbrough, who retired from a job as a sheet-metal worker 30 years before, he isn’t sure what he will do going forward. He might rebuild a building on the foundation of the barn, but that’s only if his four children (three sons, one daughter) don’t drag him away from the unlucky piece of property first.

He worked in Los Angeles for decades and he and Kathy raised their children there. The Kimbroughs maintained property for 20 years near Echo Lake but moved to the Foothill Road area less than five years ago.

Their future is uncertain.

“I’m just going to play it by ear for a while,” Kimbrough said. “We’ll wait for the insurance guy and maybe the fire marshal.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.