April 28, 2025 9:04 p.m.
Update: Mike Kleppe has been found and he is ok. Shirley Kleppe is asking the community, "please, no questions."
In Fort Bragg, a family is searching for a missing husband and father — a man who once walked through the raging Paradise fire to save lives, but who has now vanished without a word.
It was a normal Thursday morning when Shirley Kleppe’s husband, Mike, left for work.
"He gave me a kiss goodbye and said, 'I'll see you when I get home,'" Shirley recalled. "It was just a regular day. Nothing going on."
But that afternoon, Mike didn’t come home. By 4:30 p.m., Shirley started to worry. By 5 p.m., still no sign of him. She called his workplace. His car was there — but he wasn’t.
When Shirley and her daughter went to retrieve the car, they found an envelope inside. It contained Mike’s bank cards, a key to their storage unit in Paradise — and a letter.
"In so many words, he said, 'I don't want to live like this anymore. Life is not the same,'" Shirley said. "He signed it just 'Mike' — not 'Love you' or anything. I thought, something’s not right here. That’s not my Mike."
Mike's sudden disappearance has left Shirley and their family devastated. They have lived with trauma before: They survived the deadly Paradise fire in 2018, which destroyed the town and killed dozens of people.
During that fire, Shirley said, Mike became a hero.
At the time, Shirley and Mike were managing an 84-unit apartment complex. The owner called Mike and asked him to help evacuate his family. Shirley stayed behind. As the fire moved closer, she grew increasingly worried.
“I called,” she said. “The apartment owner said, 'You're safe, Shirley. You're in the middle of town. You're the safest place to be.' Well, apparently I wasn't, and Mike knew that. He took the owner's truck to get to me. He ran out of gas on Pearson Road, which is probably about eight miles from our house, and he got out and walked — through the fire, the smoke, everything — to get where I was.”
They were together, but they had no car. First, they checked the units to make sure all the residents had evacuated.
“There was a gentleman, a veteran, that was there and he couldn't walk, and my husband busted out the front window to get to him and we got him out," she said. "Well, he had his car that his caregiver drives, and we got into that. We got out of there. It looked like midnight, but it was only 9:30 in the morning. And we started driving down Clark Road.”
Around them, people were driving off the roads and up onto embankments.
“I was watching young kids, their parents running towards the fire, which I could never understand to this day.”
Then they came to a dead stop. They could hear the fire; it sounded like a freight train. Propane tanks exploded around them — sounds that would haunt Shirley for years to come.
Shirley turned to Mike and said, “We're gonna die.”
"And he goes, 'No one's gonna die today. If it's up to me, it's not gonna happen,'" she said. "He got out of the car, went up the road about a mile, and found an elderly woman who was too frightened to move her car. She had the whole line of traffic backed up. He got her to move, and then I noticed the line was moving. I was praying, 'Oh my God, we're out of here.' Then I thought, 'I have to find my husband.'"
She soon spotted him up ahead, directing traffic and urging people to move.
"And then I yelled at him, 'Come on, get in the car,' she said.
"He saved us."
The aftermath of the fire left Shirley with severe PTSD. She sought counseling. Mike did not.
"He was my rock," she said. "He’s more of a giver than a taker. And he doesn’t talk about anything. He keeps everything inside."
In the years since the fire, Mike struggled with health problems — COPD, vision issues, and low oxygen levels that caused his nose to turn purple. Shirley said she pleaded with him to seek medical help, but he refused.
Now, she fears those struggles, combined with the lingering trauma of the fire, may have overwhelmed him.
"He doesn't realize what he's left behind," she said. "We’re all in question. We’re all saying, 'Why? Why did you have to leave? Why couldn’t you stay here and tell me what’s going on?'"
Mike is described as about 5 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing about 180 pounds, with a mustache and goatee. His hair and beard are sandy gray, and he is balding on top. He has scars on his right foot from a fall he took while hanging Christmas lights years ago.
Shirley believes Mike may have been drawn to the outdoors — perhaps the beach or the forest — but she worries about his ability to survive in Fort Bragg’s cold, coastal climate. He left with some cash, but no car and no phone.
Asked what she would say to Mike if he heard the KZYX News broadcast, Shirley said through tears, "Mike, come home. We love you. Your family misses you. We just need you back."
Anyone with information about Mike’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Fort Bragg Police Department at 707-964-0200.
