Eighth Anniversary

 

For Nicole's Friday Face Off - broken, raw beauty in the face of devastation

Today marks the eighth anniversary of the Tubbs Fire that in the very early hours of October 9th, 2017 raced through parts of my town and turned entire neighborhoods to ashes. One of those neighborhoods was our old one. We weren't living there anymore at that time - we had moved to our current home five years before the fires - but the devastation and the anxious-filled days following that fateful night are still very vivid in my memory.

I didn't really want to write about this until I saw that today's prompt over at Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date is "fire" - too much of a coincidence for me to ignore.

These are the remains of the Brookdale House, our old home.

We had lived 11 years in this house and we had been very happy in it. Here Kaefer grew from a three-year old to a teenager, important years in our book. Some of our neighbors were more than just neighbors, they had become friends. The husband of the lovely couple across the street had become Kaefer's substitute grandpa. Not much was left of their home.

The couple next to us often barbecued in their backyard and the most delicious flavors were wafting over to our yard. More than a few times they invited us over and revealed some of their "cooking secrets". I am so glad that both Kaefer and I were able to say goodbye to the husband a few days before he died (this was a couple years before the fires). During the night of the fire, his wife (now a widow) thankfully wasn't at home, but staying at her daughter's home in Tahoe. She never returned. 

Some neighbors moved to other neighborhoods or towns, others rebuilt. The good connection that we had with all of them unfortunately didn't last. Every now and then I see some of them, but the bond has certainly loosened.

I went up to the burnt out neighborhood right after the fires twice. Once, to see some of my old neighbors and the other time to take Kaefer up there. She was already studying at UC Davis at the time of the fire. When we got the permission to enter the property, we went to what used to be our backyard. And here a little miracle happened - I found one of the small concrete Japanese pagodas that I had forgotten when we moved because they had been covered by ivy. It had survived the inferno!

Lost and Gained

Moonrise over Pepperwood last weekend

Rain's prompt for this week's Thursday Art and Dinner Date is Lost. I first thought I skip this, but then I realized that this prompt actually falls into a time when we, as a community in my city, commemorate a date that is engraved into our minds. Last weekend marked the fifth anniversary of the firestorm.

The night of October 8th to October 9th, 2017 - Sunday to Monday - was a night when many people in our county lost their homes and everything in it to the flames of extremely fast moving wildfires that actually were a firestorm. In my city alone entire neighborhoods burnt to the ground. 24 people lost their lives. About two weeks after the fire I wrote a more detailed post about it which you can read here.

On Saturday evening we went up to Pepperwood Preserve - we are members of this nature preserve, Kaefer had done an internship here and we enjoy the many interesting events. Pepperwood had burned badly in the firestorm and is a great example for how quickly nature comes back after a natural disaster. Their way of commemorating the anniversary was the showing of the documentary film "Embers of Awakening: From Firestorms to Climate Healing". This film was directed and produced by Phyllis Rosenfield and her Listening for a Change non-profit organisation whose mission is to promote understanding and acceptance of human diversity through education, oral history and the arts. I met Phyllis 20 years ago for the first time; she is a remarkable woman.

Here is a preview of the film (it's about 6 minutes):

While there was a tremendous amount of loss for way too many people, we have also gained much from the fires. There is a better understanding that we MUST do something about climate change, since these extreme fires happen because of the changing climate (now we just need to get the rest of the country on the same page). Many people are becoming more conscious of the way they live their life and are changing old habits. There is better "forest management" (can you ever manage nature?), but that seems to be the smallest change since most of our forests are on federal land, and federal is - well, slow (you know, they don't have enough rakes... sorry, I couldn't help myself). There is a tendency to listen to the indigenous people who have lived on this land for hundreds of years and know how to deal with fire. Our emergency alert system has been updated, and "Watch Duty" is currently my preferred system since they are in Sonoma County and report every fire here. I feel better informed. We know how to pack our bags real quick, we do have two grab-and-go boxes that are always ready to go and a list what needs to be done in a hurry. 

Now, let's go to the dinner part - much more pleasant.

Sometimes I'm not in the mood to cook and do some simple things or even grab some frozen items. I call this the "lazy cook". Recently we had a lazy cook dinner - oven-roasted asparagus.

It's so simple it almost makes you cry... Place a bunch of trimmed asparagus spears in a bowl and drizzle with 3 TB olive oil. Toss to coat, then sprinkle with 1 1/2 TB grated Parmesan, one clove minced garlic, 1/2 tsp sea salt and 1/2 tsp ground black pepper. Arrange the asparagus on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake in a 425 F preheated oven until just tender, 12 to 15 minutes depending on thickness. Sprinkle with lemon juice just before serving. Have a glass of dry Riesling with it.

The Journey of a Japanese Pagoda

In 1999, when we were still living in Germany, the Geek had to go on a business trip to Japan. He had a free weekend during that trip and beside some sight seeing he also looked for little things he could bring back to us. Among them were two small concrete pagodas that I loved to use as decor among the flowers on my balcony.

When we moved to California, thinking we would return after three years, the pagodas went to storage. Since after those three years we decided to stay in the US and had received the Green Card, all our belongings were shipped to the home we lived in at that time - the Brookdale House.

You can see both of them sitting on the ground - as you can imagine, I wanted to take a photo of Ginger and only years later, when I was looking for it, discovered that the pagodas were in the picture.

I remember having them sit there for quite a while before I made up my mind where they should go. They first went into a container with some plants.

Finally, they both went into the ivy that was growing in one corner of the backyard. They were hard to see after a while.

Eventually they had almost completely disappeared under the ivy.

When we moved out of the Brookdale House, they ivy had taken over and the pagodas were hidden somewhere beneath it. In all the chaos of moving I had totally forgotten about them. Only a few weeks later I remembered them, but by then it was too late to go back to the house and ask the new tenants whether I could look for them in the backyard.

The Brookdale House burnt down during the October firestorm in 2017. Three weeks later, when we went up to our old home for the first time after the fires, we got the permission to enter the property. We walked around what was left of the house (it wasn't much) and recalled where everything used to be in the house. We also went into what used to be the backyard. Of the beautiful redwood deck only parts of the concrete foundation remained; there was a stump of the plum tree that my friend Jo harvested every fall; a skeleton of the persimmon tree. This tree used to be in the midst of the ivy, but nothing of the ivy was left. Everything was burnt.

But then... when I turned around I saw this:

I first couldn't believe my eyes and thought I was hallucinating. One of my pagodas had survived the inferno! I never found the second one, but I was over joyed (and crying) that this one was still there.

Since it was mine I took it with me. For the longest time it was sitting on our dining table. Sometimes I turned it around - it had a "beautiful" side (in the top photo), but it also had the telling side with the burn marks.

When spring came it moved outside into one of the big flower pots.

Finally I moved it into the garden, right beneath a young vitex. Over the months it has changed its color and looks more terracotta now. It will never live among the ivy again.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 9th, is the second anniversary of the 2017 firestorm. It is ironic that we have very similar weather conditions again and as a preventative step our utility company will shut off the power over a large part of Northern California. The outage will start tonight and last at least until Thursday evening, but restoring the power can take up to five days. If you don't hear from me, you know why.

Smoky Skies

On Thursday halfway through the morning our skies slowly darkened to an unhealthy gray when smoke and ash were pushed into our region. The sunlight turned orange and it was hard to see the sun at all.

But the worst was the smell. It triggered memories of last year's October fires and heightened anxiety.

The smoke and ash comes from the rapidly spreading wildfire in Butte Canyon, about 100 miles from where I live. While I'm writing this, the fire has become the most destructive wildfire in California (surpassing "our" fire, what a sad record) with a death toll of 42 and the town of Paradise almost completely wiped out. Hell on earth.

Schools were closed here on Friday because of the poor air quality and they are closed again today (yesterday was Veterans Day, so they were closed anyway) which gives me a day off. To be honest though, I'd rather go to work and be able to breathe fresh air. We take fresh air for granted - until we don't have it anymore. Since Thursday I haven't been able to open my windows and can only be outside wearing an N95 mask. I crave fresh air. The smoke is so thick that I can't see my beloved Mount Bennett from our bedroom window. The first two days my lungs hurt and I had difficulties breathing. The Geek still does.

But these are small "sacrifices" compared to what the people in Butte County (and burning areas in Southern California as well) are going through right now. On the one hand I revisit all the emotions and despair that we felt a year and a month ago, on the other hand it is beyond my imagination to picture a community that has been extinguished within less than a day. I have no idea where these people will go to, how they will deal with the loss of their homes AND community, how they will go through the next weeks and months. So many people have lost their lives in this inferno.

It is heart breaking. How often have I said these words...

There is the Northern California Fire Relief Fund that I donated to (feeling completely helpless) and I just pass this on. We had a similar fund last year for "our" fires and it did a lot of financial help. From the experience of my friends who lost everything in the Tubbs and Nuns fires I know that every little bit helps.

The smoke makes for glorious sunrises and sunsets. It always amazes me how close horror and beauty are. Photo on top was taken on Friday morning, one day after the fire started. Second photo was shortly before sunset on Friday night and the last one is the sunrise on Saturday morning.

The Fires One Year Later

Today it's been a year since we woke up to what would become the most destructive wildfire in the history of California.

Crown Hill in Fountaingrove

Some call it the first anniversary. The students at my high school, however, prefer the term "the fires one year later". One in nine of our students have lost their home during those fires.

One. In. Nine. Of 1600 students.

It still feels like yesterday that we woke up at 2:00 am to the worst week in our life. When I went to bed yesterday I had this huge knot in my stomach when I remembered a year ago. How we went to bed not knowing what would happen only a few hours later, and how much it would change our lives.

Of course our lives hadn't changed as much as for those people who lost their homes in the fires, far from it. They are still struggling with insurances, building permits, architects, rents that are way too high. Some are in the middle of rebuilding with some homes being ready to move in pretty soon. Others are still in the planning process. Others are frustrated about the many hurdles. And others got the money from the insurance and moved away.

The school year has been awful and each and every one of us - teachers and staff - were relieved when summer came and we could leave school behind for a couple months. This year we have a new administration and we have been off to a really good start. We will commemorate October 9th by having a "normal" day, but there will be a safe space in the library and we will have therapy dogs on campus. Last year after the fires these things helped a lot.

It's been a year, and still every conversation sooner or later turns to the fires. Talking about it is a way to go through it. Even though the nightmare is in our past, it's still there - in the burnt down neighborhoods we drive through daily, when we hear the sirens of police cars and fire trucks - especially the fire trucks. The smell of smoke, even only from a barbecue, brings up terrifying memories. I think we all have Nixle on our phone now and the emergency systems have been tested.

When I go to Davis and want to take the back roads I check weather conditions and Nixle alerts. I sure don't want to be trapped by a fire in the huge wooden area. Every time I drive along those roads I remember the drive we took there on the eve of the fires. I suspect it will always stay with me.

Crown Hill in the photo above is a neighborhood in Fountaingrove. We used to live right below it, and when we moved into our old house back in 2001 those homes on the hill were just in the process of being built. I remember the constant noise of construction. Now most of the homes are gone and some time in the future, the construction noise will be back. As it is in so many neighborhoods. It's good to see homes getting up again and hopefully families being able to move in and rebuild their lives.

As for our old house - the landlord has decided not to rebuild. The property has been cleared and is just dirt right now. It still makes me sad.

A Sunset Hike

A few weeks ago I told you about an evening at Pepperwood Preserve, a nature preserve in our area. Since we are members of the preserve we are sometimes invited to special members-only events that can be talks, art gallery openings or hikes. The talks are always very interesting and every time I go away with something new I have learned.

Pepperwood burned during the October fires which motivated the staff (wonderful people, by the way) to held a series of fire related events. Most of them were highly informative talks with footage from their wildlife cameras that survived the fire. This footage showed us the sheer power of this fire, how fast and furious it was. But it also showed that it didn't take that much time for life to come back. Within two days rabbits appeared on the camera, followed by deer, a bobcat, coyotes and finally a black bear. I don't recall seeing a cougar but I'm pretty sure they have returned as well.

A few weeks ago we were invited to a sunset hike under the guidance of a Native American. Clint McKay is Wappo, Pomo and Wintun and Pepperwood's Cultural Consultant and Chair of the Native Advisory Council. He led us down the hill toward the charred trees in the photo above.

Everywhere we could see the scars of the fire. Black trunks, fallen trees, stumps of tree that had to be felled. The fallen trunks on the ground were interesting since we could clearly see where the fire did its damage. And it was also beautiful.

But among all the devastation there were new signs of life. New branches grew out of the charred soil, wildflowers reached for the light. It was undeniable that nature was bouncing back.

Then Clint started to talk. He asked us to think about the word "land management". What does management mean? If you're a manager, you're the boss and things have to be done your way, right?

Are we humans really manager of the land? Of nature?

Isn't it the other way round? Nature does whatever it wants and the only thing we can do is react. And prepare if we're smart.

Native Americans have had a different understanding of nature, the land and wildfires. They didn't manage the land, but they worked with nature. They cut away underbrush, started controlled burns and thus enabled nature to do its own thing. California has always had wildfires, it's a natural part of this landscape. Wildfires are important, and if people wouldn't interfere so much they wouldn't end in such a disaster like last October.

Then he started to talk about the Seventh Generation - and I'm not referring to the cleaning supplies company but to the Seventh Generation Principle that is based on an ancient Iroquois philosophy. It basically says that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future. Seven generations are 175 years (one generation is 25 years).

This was the moment when Clint had to fight his own emotion. 175 years back from now was the mid 19th century, a time when white people took over the land (stolen from the Native Americans, really) and Native Americans were forced back on small reservations. This is when the thoughtful work with the land ended... and we're seeing the devastating results now.

We certainly did here in Sonoma County.

Perhaps this is a bit too black and white, but I do think there is a lot of truth in this thought. And I don't want to judge here but keeping an open mind. This principle sure makes a lot of sense to me.

The sun was deep on the horizon when we had climbed back up the hill and the views were fantastic. Looking across Pepperwood to the next hill we could easily tell where the fire had raged. Just look at the trees and you can see without a doubt.

While this is a big fat scar that probably will be visible for some time we know that nature will recover from this, much faster than we do. I hope that we have learned something from these fires and do more to clear underbrush and have controlled fires. Those fires also help some long dormant seed pods to burst open and give us some stunning wildflowers. Just like we're experiencing right now.

We gathered at the ridge to the west, enjoying the warm light of the slowly setting sun. At the request of his wife, Clint led us into a Native American prayer in the Wappo language (he also speaks some Pomo). Even though we didn't understand the words we felt the emotion. Then he and his wife turned around, facing the sun and started a Native chant. It was an easy tune, and we soon followed them chanting together while the color of the light became warmer.

It was extremely moving. I had to fight back tears.

Almost everybody gathered at the Dwight Center for wine and chocolate afterwards, but the Geek and I spent a few more solitary minutes on the ridge before we joined the others.

Did I mention there was wine?

Six Months Later

It's been exactly six months when in the very early hours of Monday, October 9th 2017, we woke up to what would become the most destructive wildfire in the history of California. The week that followed was the worst week in my life and was utterly life changing for so many. 5300 homes and residences were destroyed in Santa Rosa alone. The devastation afterwards still leaves me speechless.

By now, most of the burned sites are cleared and the debris removal is almost complete. Where once used to be homes, trees and gardens is replaced by flat, cleared sites. Some trees are still standing, hoping that they might come back to life. All in all it's a pretty sad sight.

The big debris removal trucks are seen every day, and last month when one of those trucks drove down the hill (too fast?) and its brakes failed there was a rather bad accident involving seven injuries and a fire. This happened at a site that was badly burned during the October fires and for some people it was a traumatic déjà vu.

Here you can see one of those trucks, and the area behind it is our old neighborhood. The red x marks the spot where our old house used to be (I'm still so relieved that we moved a few years before the fire). We have heard that the landlord is not going to rebuild.

He is not alone. Many people have found out that they have been under insured or rebuilding will be just too expensive. Many lots have gone up for sale. Other people, neighbors in a street, have come together and want to rebuild together to keep costs lower. So far, only one home - in the Coffey Park neighborhood - has been erected since the builders were able to use the existing foundation of the house. This is not possible with most houses since the foundations were removed as part of the government-funded debris removal. However, even if it's only one home, it's a sign of hope. But still there are not even 200 building permits being currently processed since most people are still figuring out how much money they get from their insurance.

Six months later they still struggle. Some insurances have been better than others. It gave me a lot of pause. There also is a lot of price gouging, rents have gone up astronomically and the housing problems we had before the fires have become a serious housing crisis. People affected by the fire have moved away because they weren't able to find a place to live that they could actually afford.

24 people in Sonoma County (43 in all the affected counties together) lost their lives in the fires. For the past six months there has been a debate whether the county could have done more in terms of warning the population (a resounding YES). Officials have resigned over the decision not to activate the emergency system (why oh why?). While everybody agrees that no one could have been prepared for a natural disaster of such dimensions it is also clear that serious mistakes have been made (and hopefully we will learn from them).

Many people have PTSD in various degrees. When the county decided to make steep cuts to the mental health services the outcry was fierce and somehow the money for keeping up these services was found. Mental health issues have increased - I can see that in my school, and as someone said "we're not out of the woods yet" when it comes to the emotional toll of the fires.

The scars in our community will be visible for a very long time.

Nature, however, is bouncing back. Right after the fires the hills were charred and there are still a lot of burned trees in the landscape (they appear orange-brown and black in the photos).

However, since wildfire is important and necessary for California's nature, everything is coming back to life. There are beautiful wildflowers, and plants that need fire for their seedpods to open are making a big return . I think we're in for a huge gift by nature. Looking around the hills and mountains you can clearly see where the fires burned and destroyed, but you can also see all the new signs of life.

Everywhere there are still the "thank you" signs for our first responders, and I have a feeling that they will be around for a while. These men and women were working tirelessly in some of our darkest hours. My respect for them is immense.