Point Reyes Light - December 16, 2004
Barn fire second blow to Tomales family
By Jacob Resneck
Tomales firefighter Doug Olsson said that in the past six months, he’s gotten to know the Burbank family under very unfortunate circumstances. Last July, Olsson was called out to the Burbank Ranch after Linda and Bob Burbank found their eldest son Darren killed by a piece of farm equipment. The popular 24-year-old Tomales High football coach was found pinned under a hay baler for 30 minutes and had suffocated.
Unfortunately Olsson was called out to the 360-acre Twin Bridge Road cattle ranch again last Tuesday, this time to watch a 140-year-old haybarn burn to the ground.
"We got there and the barn – it was fully involved," acting Capt. Olsson recalled. "With the driving rain and wind, it was throwing embers like you wouldn’t believe."
With the barn beyond being saved, Linda Burbank recalled this week the firefighters asked what their priorities should be.
"We told the firemen, ‘Save the houses! Save the shop!’" she said.
Bob Burbank ran into the burning barn, saving a young calf (the only living thing inside), along with an all-terrain vehicle and a backhoe. The rest of the barn’s contents were lost: 1,600 bales of hay, three tractors, a swather machine (for cutting hay), and the couple’s 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle, which they’d had since they were high school sweethearts at Tomales High, Linda Burbank said.
Burbank Residence spared
Less than 100 yards from the burning barn sits the splendid Burbank residence, a distinguished manor house built in 1867 by George Walton Burbank, the famed horticulturist Luther Burbank’s eldest brother.
With the wind kicking up, embers were flying everywhere, threatening the surrounding houses with sparks.
"The cypress tree looked like it was lit up with Christmas lights it was so lit up with embers," Linda Burbank said.
Realizing that the barn couldn’t be saved, firefighters spent the night and next morning making sure the fire remained contained.
"I’m sure Darren was squeezing those rain clouds," Linda Burbank said, referring to her late son. "If it hadn’t been raining so hard that night..." she said, while making a sweeping gesture encompassing the whole ranch.
Robert Burbank said that the redwood barn would be impossible to replace. In the 1920s, it had housed a motorized mill, mixing hay and molasses into animal feed.
"It would be taken to Fallon, where they’d put it on the narrow-gauge railroad and send it up to places like Occidental," he said, explaining his great-grandfather George Walton Burbank’s operation. "That barn was from the 1860s, originally. I wouldn’t have any idea on how to put a dollar value on that."
Students fundraising for memorial
Meanwhile at Tomales High School, students who knew the late Darren Burbank have been hard at work fundraising to erect a permanent memorial for their fallen coach.
"Before, we were fundraising for the Skimboarding Club, because we all like to skimboard," senior and varsity football player Ben Kaplan said. "But [after Darren Burbank’s death] our goals have changed. We’ve decided to put all the money towards the [Darren Burbank] scholarship fund and a memorial." The fund was established by Burbank’s widow, Jean Marie.
Kaplan said he and other students were very inspired by coach Burbank.
"He had accomplished so much at such a young age," Kaplan said. "I’ve known him since 7th or 8th grade. When he passed away, it was just like, you just didn’t want to picture it. It was unreal."
Linda Burbank said she is touched that her son meant so much to the younger generation.
"They’re such a marvelous group of kids," she said of the Tomales High students. "I’m so glad that they were a part of Darren’s life and he was a part of theirs."
Kaplan said that they had already raised more than $2,000 and expected to raise more. Most of the funds have come from operating a concessions stand on campus three days a week.
Cause likely faulty electrical wires
Back at the ranch, Bob Burbank said he plans to build a new barn, though the replacement will be a far cry from the original.
"Oh, we’ll rebuild. Not the same barn, but we’ll rebuild a pole barn or an all-metal building. We need something for the hay storage. It’s not economically feasible to build what was there. It was pretty much an all-redwood structure."
The barn was insured, he said, and an insurance investigator from Sacramento had already inspected the site.
Marin County Fire Marshal Steve Alber said that the cause of the fire is still undetermined but he suspects that wires blowing in the storm may have touched, arcing, and starting the blaze.
"We don’t think it was an incendiary fire, we suspect electrical failure," Alber said.
Linda Burbank has put on a brave face. "People tell me, ‘Oh you’re taking [the fire] so well.’ Well, it wasn’t anything like our tragedy in July. These things are replaceable."
Anyone wishing to donate towards the memorial to be built on Tomales High School, can make checks payable to the "THS Skimboarding Club" c/o Tomales High School, Box 198, Tomales, 94971. Kaplan said that any funds left over after erecting the memorial will be donated towards the Darren Burbank Scholarship Fund.