Founders’ Story

The San Diego Cedar Fire in 2003 burned 273,246 acres, destroyed 2,232 homes and took 15 lives. When this disaster struck, we were not in town. The fire took our home, our life belongings, our pet, and most of our community.

Almost immediately we were inundated by paperwork:  insurance documents, long lists of items destroyed, receipts for all things being replaced (everything!), DMV paperwork for cars destroyed, building code and zoning updates, demolition bids, list of donations, community resources, FEMA paperwork, business cards of service providers, any important helpful handouts that we received, and on and on.  This avalanche of papers all got tossed onto the floor in the rental house…to be “sorted later.” That mound of disorganized paperwork was eventually tossed into a large cardboard box. What we didn’t know then was that organizing all of this would be one of the hardest post-fire tasks to address.

Upon realizing all of this, my wife, Barbara, designed a simple organizational solution. Within short order, all of those out-of-control papers were neatly placed in a manageable order in organized folders inside an easy to carry around plastic file box.  Thus, the birth of the Home Loss File System box.  Finally we began to regain a sense of control over our lives…simply by getting organized!
– Charlie