POTRERO, Calif. (KGTV) — A 96-year-old local veteran is now rebuilding his life after a fire tore through his Potrero home, destroying nearly everything he owned.
Frederick Brown, a longtime veteran, is currently staying with family in Spring Valley after the Sunday night fire left his house uninhabitable. While Brown says he’s grateful to be alive, the loss has been overwhelming for him and his loved ones.
“I don’t have a bed. I sleep in a chair just like this one,” Brown said.
Brown spent many of his early years serving in the U.S. military, joining the Air Force after his wife embraced military life. In recent years, he had been enjoying retirement surrounded by family at his home in Potrero — a place filled with decades of memories.
That all changed overnight.
“I came out of my room, and the house was just full of smoke,” Brown recalled. “My son grabbed me by the shoulder and jerked me out of the house. He said, ‘Come on, the house is on fire.’”
The damage left behind is extensive. Much of the roof collapsed, leaving the home nearly unrecognizable.
“It was already gone by the time we got there,” said Brown’s granddaughter, Laura Lee Brown.
She described the panic she felt when she first learned about the fire, struggling with poor cell reception as she tried to understand what was happening.
“All I could hear was ‘it’s burning down, the house is burning down — it’s gone,’” she said.
Both Brown and his son — also a veteran — made it out safely. But many irreplaceable belongings and family memories were lost.
“Everything in the living room is no saving. It’s water-damaged,” Laura Lee Brown said, describing the destruction inside the home.
Among the few items salvaged were Brown’s medical records and a small hospital binder containing a note his granddaughter had given him when she was a child — one of the rare keepsakes to survive the fire.
“This is extremely devastating because he’s given me everything in life,” she said.
Brown and his son are now living with Laura Lee Brown in her Spring Valley apartment as the family works to rebuild. The process has already brought financial strain, including frequent trips back to Potrero, gas costs, and the need for moving trucks.
“It’s an hour drive from where we are, so the gas, the U-Hauls — it all adds up,” she said.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family recover and begin rebuilding after the devastating loss.
