A former Edmonton Oilers goaltender, Grant Fuhr, was one of thousands impacted by the wildfires in California – he was forced to evacuate from a hotel overnight Sunday.
Fuhr said he was in Sonoma to participate in Ronnie Lott’s charity golf tournament over the weekend.
“[I] had gone to bed and then got a phone call at 2 in the morning saying there was a fire close by, then we had to evacuate,” Fuhr said in a phone interview from Palm Springs. “We kind of grabbed our stuff and packed in the dark and went outside…didn’t look so bad, [we] looked behind the hotel and the fire was fairly close to us.”
Fuhr said he and his wife, along with Sterling Sharpe, a former wide receiver in the NFL, who was also at the same golf tournament, managed to get a ride out of the area.
“We had to figure out how to get out of there…fortunately a random guy went by, and was playing in the tournament, was nice enough to give us a ride down to San Francisco,” Fuhr said.
Before he received the call early Monday, Fuhr said the wildfires had not been an issue at the tournament.
“It was a big surprise,” Fuhr said. “We played golf the day before and it was gorgeous so it wasn’t even something we had considered.”
As for what was left behind, Fuhr said he wasn’t sure what happened to the hotel he evacuated from, people staying at other hotels told him they saw their hotels burning as they evacuated.
“It was moving fast, I mean we were lucky,” Fuhr said. “People in Santa Rosa weren’t so lucky.”
With files from Nicole Weisberg
