Clean-up has started in Chinese Camp after the TCU September Lightning Complex Fire ripped through the Gold Rush town earlier this month.

"This has always been my home and now it's destroyed and there's absolutely nothing we can do right now except keep surviving," said Maryanne Martinez-Patrick, who lost her home in the fire. "We are going to make it."

She and her husband, Robert Patrick, may have lost everything on their property, but they are not losing hope.

"This is where the campians survive," said Robert.

The couple is living out of a trailer and tents on their burnt-out property , surrounded by blackened metal that is now only memories.

Tuesday marks the first phase of recovery, with state-certified cleanup crews searching for hazardous materials, such as propane tanks a

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