A white gold wedding band pulled from the ashes symbolizes hope for a California firefighter who lost his home and possessions in a blaze that wiped out his Altadena neighborhood.
Chien Yu and his family were forced to flee when the wind-whipped fires rapidly descended on their home last week. He noticed an orange glow through the trees in his backyard and he knew it was time to go.
As soon as his wife and two young sons were secured, Yu reported to the firehouse to start a 16-hour shift to protect the property of his Altadena neighbors.
CNN's Erin Burnett met up with Yu on his first day back on the job and accompanied him on a tour of his own property, which had been reduced to rubble. The charred remains looked like a scene from a war zone.
Yu was emotional as he surveyed the devastation. He pointed to a concrete slab that used to be his front porch, and some tangled strings that were the only remains of the family's grand piano.
Yu told Burnett that his wife did manage to pack some stuff, but she and the kids are unrooted right now. The boys want to go back home and they want to go back to school, but both their home and school have been destroyed.
"I just wanted normalcy. So that's why I came back to work," Yu told Burnett. "But it's never going to be the same for the kids."
As a firefighter, Yu sees destruction everyday. But, Yu said this experience has been indescribable.
"I mean, you know, when we go to a house fire, you kind of detach, and you just sort of do what's best for the homeowner and you put their fire out and we kind of salvage what we can," he said. "We pull what we can... And hopefully some of their stuff makes it."
Then he took a breath and looked at his own property and said, "But this is just just gone."
A moment later, CNN cut to a shot of two other firefighters sifting through the ashes on Yu's property.
"What's that? What's that?" Burnett shouted as a firefighter pulled a small, round object from the rubble and handed it to Yu. "Oh, my God."
It was Yu's wedding ring.
"Chien, what's your wife going to say?" asked an excited Burnett.
"She didn't know [it was missing]," he said. "Now everybody knows where we found it."
CNN then cut to a scene of Yu's wife, Kim's, reaction upon seeing the dusty, but cherished, ring. She was overwhelmed with emotion as she hugged her husband.
CNN viewers sensed that the ring is now a symbol of the strength of their bond and commitment to rebuild. They hope to stay in Altadena, not far from where Yu grew up.
"Yeah, we want to be back," he said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the family's Go Fund Me page had accumulated $216,000 in donations from 2,700 individuals. That's 87% of the way to their target goal of $250,000.
You can visit their Go Fund Me page here…
See Burnett's five-minute report here…
Credits: Screen captures via cnn.com.