--- title: Strangers Help Women Find Photo of Her Boyfriend After Oakland Fire description: Saya Tomioka said she started crying after strangers helped her find a photo of her boyfriend who died in the Oakland fire at Ghost Ship. canonical: https://time.com/4597992/oakland-fire-victim-girlfriend-photo/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-12T18:08:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:39:24.038Z og:title: Strangers Help Oakland Fire Victim's Girlfriend Find Touching Photo og:description: "I finally found you" og:url: https://time.com/4597992/oakland-fire-victim-girlfriend-photo/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Strangers Help Oakland Fire Victim's Girlfriend Find Touching Photo twitter:description: "I finally found you" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Strangers Help Woman Track Down a Sweet Photo of Her Boyfriend Who Died in Oakland Fire > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=edc9c9d1-1bab-422e-812b-68f1e432418b&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Dec 12, 2016 6:08 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Dec 12, 2016 6:08 PM UTC A woman who lost her boyfriend in the [tragic Ghost Ship fire in Oakland](http://time.com/4593151/oakland-ghost-ship-fire-warehouse-schaaf/) found a beautiful photo of the pair taken by a stranger on a trip to New York City after asking for a “Facebook miracle.” Saya Tomioka took to [Facebook ](http://fortune.com/2016/11/14/zuckerberg-facebook-media/) to post a plea following the devastating fire, in the hope that she could find a picture that a stranger had taken of her and her boyfriend, Griffin Madden, kissing in Times Square during a trip to New York City almost two years ago. [Madden, 23, was one of at least 36 victims](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Latest-list-of-confirmed-victims-of-Oakland-fire-10781519.php) who died after a deadly fire broke out during a party in a warehouse. “I need some light right now,” she wrote on Dec. 4\. “I need a reminder of the brightest light of all—love.” In less than a week, strangers on the Internet had rallied and found the image and its photographer, Arken Avan, who posts romantic pictures of couples on an Instagram account called @newyorkfaces. According to an Instagram of the photo that he posted, he went through his archive of over 200,000 photos to find the tender moment that he captured of them kissing. For Tomioka, finding the photo was emotional. She posted the found photo along with a touching message addressed to Madden. “I’ve finally found you. I sobbed when I saw this photo in Thom’s arms, and then, I immediately laughed uncontrollably,” she wrote. “Life is so strange. I’ve lost you, but I’ve never felt stronger in my life. Through our many years of love and growth, I learned how to be strong from you.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4597992/oakland-fire-victim-girlfriend-photo/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4597992/oakland-fire-victim-girlfriend-photo/"},"headline":"Strangers Help Woman Track Down a Sweet Photo of Her Boyfriend Who Died in Oakland Fire","datePublished":"2016-12-12T18:08:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:39:24.038Z","description":"\"I finally found you\"","url":"https://time.com/4597992/oakland-fire-victim-girlfriend-photo/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","facebook","Culture"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4597992/oakland-fire-victim-girlfriend-photo/","name":"Strangers Help Woman Track Down a Sweet Photo of Her Boyfriend Who Died in Oakland Fire"}}]}] ```