Found Jewelry Amongst Glendale Fire Ashes
Mike lost about 60-70% in a fire in Glendale, CA a couple months ago. He got ahold of me through the RingFinders website and chose me due to my fire recovery experience from many previous fires. I pulled up to a large two story house up in the mountains. Once he showed me where his mother’s closet was, where a lot of the jewelry had been stored, it seemed like the majority of the second story and the roof had collapsed onto the first story. So I made a grid of the area, set up sifting screens, and methodically started to shovel material into the screens from one corner of the house to the other. After a short amount of time I began to find glass crystals which were remnants from a large chandelier, and many other artifacts that the family had from previous generations. After a couple hours of digging, I recovered a small, melted box that held many pieces of jewelry including a beautiful large, white gold cross covered with stones. After a little more searching, I made the plan to come back another day during daylight. About three weeks later after the heavy rain had died down, I returned to the site. Hesitant to climb a ladder to the second story, with a rickety burnt out floor and no roof, I started the same process on the second floor for other lost jewelry from a bedroom bureau. Right away I began to find earrings, charms, medallions, and many charred coins. I couldn’t find everything they had lost in the fire, but recovered everything that I could, that I could safely get to. Mike was very happy to call his wife and mother to tell them about the recovered jewelry that they believed was lost forever. They are looking forward to rebuilding their lives in a newly modeled home.
A few days ago I received a call from a high school student named Nick. His father passed away just under 6 months ago, and his mom gave him his father’s ring. He was really distraught, Nick called me asking if I could come over after he got out of school. I went to meet him the next day. His friends were throwing a football in the front yard and that’s when the ring got lost. The whole yard was covered in bushes and tall leaves, making it difficult to find the ring. I used my metal detector to search for a signal, but there was a lot of dirt so I had to rake it up and sift it through my sifting screen. After about an hour I got a weak signal from one of the big leafy bushes near the front and moved the leaves out of the way to get a better visual. There was the ring, sitting there with a big Rolex symbol on it. I was very happy to return the sentimental ring to the young high school boy, who was happy to have a piece of his father with him forever.
WHOOP! Gig ’em Aggies!
I was contacted by Derrick and we made arrangements to meet on 4/21/17. here is a quick summery of the days events in his words;
