Rebuilding After Wildfires
Content related to: Wildfires
By: Claire Wheeler
You never think it’ll happen to you, until it does. I remember waking up to panicked calls and texts with no idea of what had taken place in my hometown. And after not being able to get a hold of my parents for about an hour, I feared the worst. I still get teary eyed thinking about how I collapsed on the floor of my apartment in anguish that morning, feeling helpless and uncertain of what lay ahead. While the only loss we encountered was material, this natural disaster brought on emotional turmoil like I had never experienced before.
Even almost 4 years later, the hypersensitivity to hot, windy Sunday nights still lingers in our minds. Running through the list of important documents and cherished belongings before falling asleep is part of our bedtime routines during fire season. Though we have rebuilt our house, these new walls are a constant reminder of how quickly it can all be turned to ash.
Wildfires are an all too familiar threat these days. Whether you’ve been affected physically, mentally, or both, this loss is something that sticks with you. It’s an experience that we all process differently, but the support of a scorched community is second to none – and we were lucky enough to witness that firsthand.
“This is what our house looked like initially after it had been burned down by the Tubbs Fire of 2017. We walked through the rubble and ash and tried to make out what things used to be and scavenged for any remnants that happened to survive. I remember finding a foot and hand to one of the dolls I had as a kid. We found charred golf clubs, tools, some parts of dishes and pieces of countertops, and even the metal frame from our piano. We found sand dollars that we had collected years ago that survived the flames, which was incredible. It was a pretty sobering, but bittersweet thing to do as a family.”
“This was after our lot was cleared. We had set aside some items that had survived despite the fire, including some sand dollars we collected, and tiles from Spain. I remember thinking that the lot looked so small without our home on it.”
“Just getting started on the new house, a little over a year after the fire. It took a lot of time to meet with contractors, decide on floor plans, get permits, finance the project, etc. I was finishing up my senior year at OSU at the time, so my parents were taking on all of these decisions. However, my parents didn’t feel entirely alone since many others in our neighborhood were going through the exact same process, so they had people to lean on and relate with. My dad in the black sweatshirt, was constantly at the job site and in contact with the contractor’s office/team. I had graduated and was home at this point, so I was getting more involved in the process.
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“It was pretty amazing watching the foundation and beginnings of the house go up!
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“Things are looking promising, like we might move in just 2 years after the fire happened in 2017. We had some reservations about the contractor and the workmanship, since things were getting done slowly.”
“This was around the time we took over the project ourselves. Our contractor had various issues, and was not being communicative with us at all. We sent a certified letter to dissolve the professional relationship, and began assuming the responsibilities ourselves after about 7-8 months of work/questionable work from the contractor (as seen in the below pictures). This involved hiring subcontractors ourselves and seeking out materials. We did a lot of work ourselves too in order to expedite the process or save some money on things we were capable of doing. Luckily, we assumed full ownership of the project at a good time in the process, but still had to deal with the repercussions of a less than stellar contractor. We had an immense amount of help from contacts in Sonoma and throughout the community, for whom we are forever grateful!”
“Here is us on a weekend in July 2019 – a typical weekend for us during that year!! Very glamorous, I know. The process was pretty all-consuming. Free time was spent working on the house or picking things out for the house or researching how to do things for the house.”
“Spent Christmas time putting in cabinets and flooring as we were getting closer to a potential move in date. It was starting to feel so real that this was our new house, but most days it felt like we were never going to be fully finished (and we still aren’t in 2021!). A couple months prior, our new home and rental house were both in potential fire danger while we were on vacation in Hawaii. A testament to how the threat never goes away, and how easily it could all be ripped away again.”
“A day or two before we moved back in and spent our first night in the new house. On the outside, it looks pretty much done! There was still a lot to do inside in terms of touch up and furnishing. But we got the official ‘okay’ about a week before that we had passed the final inspection and were good to go! About 2.5 years after the fire, we were back home.”