New Superior homeowner who escaped with only her clothes details her experience evacuating, recovering from Marshall Fire

Sara Malang had only lived in her house in Superior for six weeks when the Marshall Fire occurred. Without any warning or alert to leave, Malang almost waited too long to leave her neighborhood.

"I was like 90% unpacked, but I still had moving boxes and I still had stuff I hadn't fully figured out where I was going to put it in the house," she said. "I'm still trying to remember where things even are to pack a bag. I'm like, 'Where did I even put? What do I even grab within 5 minutes?'"

She tried to drive out of her Sagamore neighborhood but couldn't get through the flames. She says she left her car, and miraculously hurdled someone's back fence. 

She says she ran through the Superior Marketplace and took the pedestrian bridge over Highway 36 before she was finally picked up by a stranger and driven to Erie to be reunited with her family.

"I'm a spiritual person, something was looking out for me. This is the nearest I've been to death, ever," Malang said.

The next few months were foggy, but through online community connections, she finally had a chance to do something she never did before, build relationships with neighbors.

"This neighborhood, I chose it because it's very cute quaint. This is the area I've been wanting to live in for a long time," Malang said. "Hearing some of my neighbor's stories, meeting some of my neighbors, these people are my kindred spirits, and we went through something similar and this is just a great area to be in."

Malang started looking into rebuilding and quickly found a path she wanted to follow with Boulder Creek Neighborhoods.

"It is great to see the activity just going full bore right now building homes," said Steve Erickson the Founder and General Counsel for Boulder Creek Neighborhoods. "It was never a question that we were not going to be part of it because this is our hometown."

The homebuilder is based in Louisville and has several projects in Superior under construction. But the company was set up to build entire neighborhoods. It had to set up an entirely new division to be able to handle single homes like the Marshall Fire rebuilding would need. 

Boulder Creek is now handling dozens of rebuilds for people like Malang.

"You can see the reaction and the joy that they, and just the sense of relief that they know there is now a road for a new home. They can come back to their community," Erickson said.

"There's a lot of hope. It makes me feel like a new beginning," Malang said as she looked over the several homes that have sprouted up in Sagamore. "There's a big push to make this feel like home again."