ST. GEORGE — They call Washington City home now, but two years ago John and Wendy Lozano escaped from Paradise.
In 2018, when the Lozanos first heard that the Camp Fire had jumped the canyon near their home near their Paradise, California, home, they weren’t overly concerned. The couple was remodeling and a construction crew that was sanding their floors had received the news and were packing up their equipment to leave.
They had been monitoring the fire, Wendy Lozano said, and her husband didn’t think they needed to panic. Soon, however, a neighbor pulled up to their house “hysterical,” she said, because the hospital that was just three miles from their home was on fire.
As the neighbor pulled away and the Lozanos turned to go into their home, a transformer blew and they could hear explosions. The pair quickly grabbed an important file, a couple shirts and their dogs, and left.
That day, the fire completely destroyed their home.
“My husband did not believe our home burned down,” Lozano said. “We got confirmation the next day.”
The couple shared their home with one of their adult sons who traveled a lot for work. The son was out of town with just a suitcase full of what he needed for the trip.
Another of the couple’s sons and his wife as well as John Lozano’s mother also lost their homes to one of the most deadly and destructive fires in California’s history.
“From that moment, you’re just trying to mentally recover,” Wendy Lozano said when it was confirmed. “The first two nights I didn’t sleep at all. I had just lost everything.”
When the couple were allowed to return to the property, they began poking through the rubble. As Lozano was digging near where their bed once was, she found two rings – her high school ring and her husband’s Army ring.
The blackened rings were placed in a box and not really thought of until recently.
Six months after the fire, the couple relocated to Washington City.
“We knew that if there was ever a time to move it would be right now,” Wendy Lozano said of deciding to leave California after the fire.
The pair traveled to several different states including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada, she said, but when they pulled into Utah they knew they had arrived.
“When we dropped into Utah, my husband said he could hear angels singing. He said it just felt like home,” she said.
So the couple bought a home and started a new life in Southern Utah. A couple weeks ago, Wendy Lozano found and unpacked the box that contained the two rings.
Her husband, an Army veteran, had suffered some small brain damage as the result of a work accident, she said, and did not remember that the rings were recovered after the fire, but she knew his Army ring meant a lot to him.
That is when she got the idea to take it to a jeweler to see if it could be restored.
“When it came out of the fire it was crispy, black,” Lozano said of her husband’s ring.
Lozano took the ring to Seven Oaks Fine Jewelers in St. George where she met Laura Lister.
Laura has a heart for vets and took on the project with nonstop passion, Lozano said.
For Lister, diving into the project was not even a question.
“How could you not? They lost everything in the fire. You can’t find someone more deserving than someone who has lost everything,” Lister said.
Lister said she sat down with the ring and did the best she could to restore it to its original state without ruining the sentimentality of it, a task she said she felt humbled to be trusted with. A task that, for a veteran, she was happy to do.
“They are the lost voices,” she said of veterans.
When the ring was complete and delivered back to Lozano, the two women shared many tears.
“I don’t know who was more tearful, her or me,” Lister said. “If you don’t get choked up and damn near cry, you are pretty heartless.”
On Christmas Day, Lozano surprised her husband with the ring.
“He said it was the best Christmas present ever.”
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Washington City resident John Lozano is surprised with his restored Army ring that was burnt in the Paradise California fire, Washington City, Utah, Dec. 25, 2020 | Photo courtesy of Wendy Lozano, St. George News The Army ring before restoration, Washington City, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of Wendy Lozano, St. George News The Army ring after restoration, Washington City, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of Wendy Lozano, St. George News Remnants of the Paradise, California home Wendy and John Lozano, Paradise, California, circa 2018 | Photo courtesy of Wendy Lozano, St. George News John and Wendy Lozano dig through the remnants of their Paradise, California home, Paradise, California, circa 2018 | Photo courtesy of Wendy Lozano, St. George News
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