In a span of 20 minutes, the Flat Fire claimed decades of Braxton Holly's life.

That's all the fire needed to turn his custom-built home of 30 years into smoking wood and a pile of twisted metal and plastic, and his 10-acre Sisters property into a sea of charred trees and vehicles. Melted metal pooled on the ground. His wheelchair ramp was reduced to ashes.

Days later, the 81-year-old Holly is still trying to process what happened. Holly's home was one of five homes that burned in the 23,380-acre fire that started Aug. 21 in Jefferson County, according to the interagency organization Central Oregon Fire Information. As of Friday, the fire was 13% contained.

"I built this house myself," Holly said. "When I went back in the morning, and was able to get into the area, I saw my house had burned to the ground.

"It was surprising and terrible. It's a bit overwhelming at the moment."

Holly's home on Goldcoach Road in Sisters is one of a handful of structures among the scrub brush and junipers. But his was the only one on the street that burned.

Flat Fire public information officer Gert Zoutendijk said Friday that officials are not releasing the addresses of the other homes or structures that were burned in the fire.

"We still have some hotspots or smoldering stumps in the interior of the fire," Zoutendijk said. "But from the edge to 300 feet in, it's all looking really good. The containment percentage should increase over the next couple of days."

On that Friday evening, Holly was on the phone talking about the fire with a friend who had worked for the forest service. It started near Culver, not Sisters and he could see the glow.

But it seemed in the distance.

Then, 20 minutes later he had a knock on the door and was told he had to get out and his house might not be there in the morning. Paramedics there took his vitals and told him to get out now.

Dressed in only shorts and a t-shirt, he wheeled himself to his in his car and spent the night in his vehicle at Cloverdale School parking lot, he said.

"I bought that land when no one was out there," Holly said. "I lived on that land, first in a teepee, then in a trailer until I built the log house. An artist friend did some carvings on the ends of the logs. I had a lot of stuff that is irreplaceable.

"I don't wish this on anyone. It's not good."

Since last week, fire officials have reduced the evacuation levels, but residents are still under a Level 1-Be Ready evacuation warning.

An injury and a failed spinal surgery keeps Holly using a wheelchair, so access to places to stay is limited, said his friend Erik Dolson. Rebuilding and the future still are unanswered questions, Dolson said.

Dolson has set up a Go Fund Me site that has generated more than $15,000 in donations.

"It's difficult to watch the life of someone I've known and respected for 50 years, whose mind is sharp while his body fails, come apart, go up in smoke, disappear into the dust," Dolson said. "How do you start again at 81?"