BOULDER, Colo. — The fires still burning in California are now affecting people who call Colorado home.

One young man is a missionary and is spending two years away from his family to spread the word of Jesus Christ.

“It came through and burned down most of Paradise,” Missionary Tyler Vail said. “Mine was one of many that was taken out by the fire.”

Elder Tyler Vail’s family home was reduced to rubble, just the chimney remains.

“Everyone made it out OK, I made sure my dog made it out OK too. That’s pretty important. Everything else is really just a house ultimately,” Vail said.

With this missionary assignment, Vail can’t watch TV or use the internet. He can only call home on certain holidays, so a church member is getting updates.

“They threw a few things in the cars, they split up, and they had to abandon the cars because there were flames on both sides of the road, and they ended up leaving the cars, and running for it,” the Bishop’s wife and church member Cindy Fischer said. “They got out with nothing except their cell phones and the clothes on their backs, they really lost everything, everything.”

The church has come together to fund the rest of Vail’s two year trip. It’s a trip he wants to finish.

Vail said, “I know God can do more for my family when I’m serving other people in the place of Colorado than I could ever do at home.”

During Vail’s interview with FOX31, a church member got word that Vail’s grandmother’s house was destroyed, too.