Becky Dominguez surveying the damage done to her home in the Carr fire in Redding, California. The fire tornado shown on social media and the news was the culprit.

REDDING, CA. — To local residents, the fire tornado shown on the news in the early days of California's Carr Fire was a terrifying component of that blaze.

To 1998 Knoch High School graduate Becky (Neubert) Dominguez, it was the unexpected tempest that destroyed everything she owned.

Dominguez moved to Redding four years ago with her husband and baby in tow, and chose a home near the Sacramento River where the chances of suffering a wildfire were eight in 100.

Dominguez explained that she and her young family, which includes husband Benjamin, daughter Selah and son Rowan, were on vacation in the British Virgin Islands on Thursday, July 26 when they got a call from the friends who were house sitting for them.

At the time, they knew the Carr fire, which had started 10 to 13 miles from their subdivision at Whiskeytown Lake, was burning but not threatening their neighborhood.

The friends told her there was a possibility of evacuation, but Dominguez still didn't panic because she knew Cal Fire employees frequently evacuated neighborhoods where the power would be shut down for safety reasons.

The family went to bed that night enjoying their tropical paradise, while utter chaos was breaking out at home.

Dominguez said the house sitters took the family's dogs for a walk down to the trail along the Sacramento River.

“They said it was very eerie, because there was a glow in the distance,” Dominguez said. “Then people started running up and saying 'The fire has jumped the river! Run!' People were running around and screaming.”

The infamous fire tornado that appeared on social media and evening news reports — which developed from a fire so powerful that it formed its own ecosystem — barreled straight through Dominguez' subdivision and destroyed her entire home and car in minutes.

“Really, nothing survived,” she said.

Family members have set up a GoFundMe page for the Dominguez family, which can be viewed by visiting www.gofundme.com and searching “Ben and Becky Dominguez”.

Read the full story in the Butler Eagle.