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Crime & Safety

PHOTOS: Hand Salvage at Cook Barn

Family members work to save the red planks that didn't burn in the Dec. 1 fire.

Trying to preserve the wood that wasn't , members of the Cook family began the process today of bringing down their historic barn.

Greg Cook, who owns one-quarter of the barn, considers the effort a "salvage clean-up." 

"We're saving the red wood," he said. "We don't know what we're going to do with the wood."

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In , San Juan Capistrano city officials gave the family until Jan. 1 to demolish the barn's remains, which they said is now a public nuisance.

The "big machine" will come Friday to start the formal demolition, Cook said. Then the family will spend the weekend picking through the debris in search of personal effects and historic artifacts.

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On Monday, the demolition crew will return to break down the foundation and complete the job, Cook said.

Joining Cook in the effort today was Jimmy Elliott and Hugo Ariano, son and son-in-law of Mary Cook Elliott, who owns 50 percent of the barn property. Another family member, Susan Cook Wilson of Nevada City, owns the other 25 percent.

about the future of the barn property.

Meanwhile, Teresa Cook, daughter of Greg Cook, tended to the chickens on the property and became emotional.

"It's disgusting," she said. She and her two children and their father had been living in the barn for about nine months before it burned earlier this month.

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