Clayton Fire / Part 3

I never loved

the color pink more than I do now. The air tankers painted our town that color to protect it from the alternative color of red. FIRE!

• Above picture is from Google images, Clayton Fire.

Looking in my rearview mirror, this is basically what I saw as we headed out on that day, up to Diener Ranch and away from the flames and mayhem. Being alone on the drive out of town, following my daughter in my husband’s one-ton Dodge, and my sister-in-law behind me, I was both grateful for the time alone to process what we’d just been through, and also worried of everyone else’s state of mind.

As we pulled into our home place of the ranch, everyone parking near the old cabin, we each got out slowly and robotically. The dogs weren’t even their normal, jovial selves like they usually are when they come to the ranch. Usually they are excited and frolic. This time, they got out and remained nearby, walking around us confused and nervous.

We fed the dogs, watered them, and started to unpack suitcases from our cars so we could each shower.

We had water there!

To recap, there were four of us. My sister-in-law Kari, myself, my 18, (almost 19) year old daughter, and her boyfriend Bub were evacuees from Lower Lake, to our ranch up on Diener Drive, in the early evening of August 14, 2016.

Deciding to conserve the water as much as possible because it was usually either Bill or Charlie that pumped water from our well, we were all reluctant to be the first to shower. “You go…………. No, you go….” was the basis of conversation regarding showering. Nobody wanted to seem greedy, but we ALL really needed to bathe!

We had electricity there!

All of us plugged in our cell phones. We knew communication and information about the conditions were essential to our mood. If we knew what to expect, our stress levels calmed. For the time being, nobody took “feeling safe,” for granted. We knew conditions could change at the drop of a hat.

Charlie had called me about 30 minutes after we arrived. He asked if we had any questions about the cabin and told us that if things continued to die down, he would be up to check on us. I felt like crying every time I talked to him or saw him during the event, and just hearing his raspy voice made me nearly break. I knew now he’d been awake 36 hours and was suffering from smoke inhalation to boot. Still, he pushed on.

Not long after, to our surprise, Charlie came over the hill in his chief’s truck and brought with him my nephew Reed, and his father Bill. They had in the back of Charlie’s truck, an ice chest Bill had used to purge their freezer and in it was chicken and Tri-tips. We were set!

For the next few days. Charlie came when he got a break and with him, he always brought Bill and Reed. They had lost their vehicles in the fire, but neither of them would stay with us at the ranch, because of looters going out Morgan Valley Road where we lived. They stayed with their house, with no power or water, and continued to keep what they had left safe.

As for Charlie, he slept only a few hours a night, and was out mostly looking for hot spots and rekindles, going where he was instructed to help. The rest of us, hunkered down in a one bedroom cabin that was NOT set up for more then one person! We managed.

After a few days of sleeping with stressed out dogs on one recliner, one trundle twin bed, and the bed of a truck……… we all knew we’d have to either make the trek all around Lake County to get to Clearlake Park, or we’d go crazy from lack of sleep. We had a four bedroom house out there that was our friend’s vacation house, sitting vacant waiting for us, and we couldn’t get to it from road closures.

When I woke, (and I put that lightly because as exhausted as I was, I couldn’t sleep until after 2:00am each night), on the first morning, it was because a text was coming in. It was my dear friend, Karen, who at 6:00am was texting me to say they’d lost everything! And I mean………. it ALL! Their rentals, their ranch, their horse barns, their home, and even lost some animals too! They had only her husband’s truck he barely made it out with and she was out of town when it all happened so she wasn’t even home to gather up any belongings!

That day started with tears.

Eventually, the news of roads opening were golden! We packed up our ice chests again from the cabin’s refrigerator, took drinks and food, and once all our belongings were securely packed back into our rigs, we set out for our friend’s Mark and Renee Cooper’s house in Clearlake Park.

I HAD A BED OF MY OWN!

We didn’t know just how stressed and on survival mode we were until we got to a comfortable home. Fully equipped bathrooms, bedrooms, and kitchen, made us nearly cry! The dogs even slept hard for the first time in days!

 Even dogs

have stress! These are my two, who wouldn’t leave my side after what they’d seen and been through. I had them nearly up my butt and at night, they had this same blanket that I packed for them, spread across the opposite side of the bed, so they could sleep with me. I’d like to say I gave them comfort, but with Charlie still gone, I admit, they game me comfort too.

The news of an arrest of the serial arsonist came and we were both happy, but sickened at the same time. It came all too late. There are no words to describe how I hope justice finds this man!

I can never repay Mark and Renee for opening their home to us as they did when we needed a sanctuary, but I hope they know the extent of our gratitude. Eventually, Reed came out to stay with us and his mother made him rest. He was starting his senior year of high school and football practice and scrimmages were scheduled.

Life still went on!

The trouble was, he had all his gear burned up in the fire. All his shoes, athletic gear, it ALL went up with his burned truck.  He needed to go get new stuff in Santa Rosa, an hour and 15 minute drive away, to be able to play in the up coming scrimmage. It seemed there was really no time to breathe!

But friends stepped up to help, even when I really didn’t consider us victims of the fire. We still had a home to go to……….. eventually. Even though I had NO IDEA what it would look like, my husband and his brother assured us, we had homes. This made me feel both grateful and guilty all at the same time. Our friends Joyce and Marv, brought us a huge casserole of spaghetti, bread, and cake. No need to shop for dinner and that was huge for Kari and me.

We were able to do laundry. What little we brought, we were able to wash. It made a huge difference. We filled our time with cleaning, walking the dogs outside on leashes, (because there wasn’t a fenced area), and calling our insurance companies to start claims.

Bill and Kari have lost a considerable amount. They lost three vehicles, a carport, all the belongings they were trying to save within those vehicles, and a shed full of her family’s heirloom furniture she had yet to restore. We lost most of our outdoor areas of our property. Besides all our landscaping, we lost our backyard decking, pool area, all our fencing posts and cross fencing areas, two blown windows in our guest house, (thank God my oldest had moved out of there earlier), and a ruined asphalt area near the garage where the dozer had to crawl over to protect our property. We both have smoke damage to a certain extent but it’s livable.

Did I say there was a fire right behind us in Clearlake Park on our first night at the Cooper’s?

Stress, stress, stress! I ‘d been in touch with my father, who called to check and see if we wanted to come to his house in Clearlake, but the reason we didn’t was, there were so many of us that we really needed the Cooper’s house! It was big enough for all of us to have our own beds and we were too insecure to separate at that point. WE HAD TO STAY TOGETHER.

And what a beautiful place we stayed at!

This was my morning view!

So I felt terrible that all I kept feeling was, I just wanna go home!

Then I got my wish. Charlie had told us we’d be able to repopulate that afternoon and I was elated. I knew it would be ugly and messy, but I was ready to tackle anything necessary to be in my house again.

Kari felt different.

I didn’t realize that through the whole thing, she was in a denial state. She was perfectly happy going to work and returning to the Cooper house in Clearlake Park, where everything was orderly and clean and safe. I didn’t take into account that she might be too scared to face what was waiting for her at home.

We all have our own PTSD. I had a breakdown on the Friday before we had to start school. I went into a meeting, still living at our friend’s vacation house, and we had a staff meeting. I walked around to the back of the school, to my library. I did this intentionally so I wouldn’t have to see my closest friends, Wendy and Terri, who work in the front office.

I wasn’t ready!

But Terri wasn’t having it. She saw me sneak around and met me in the hall of the back entrance. I fell apart at the sight of her. You save your weakest moments for those you are closest too. They are the ones who make you feel safe. It’s seeing them that make you realize you don’t have to remain the rock all the time.

During our stay at Mark and Renee’s house I also reached out to a fellow evacuee, who had ironically stayed in the very same house as us one year earlier, due to the Valley Fire. Our friends, the Gills, stayed there and I had some questions about the house and called Jamey to say, “HEY! I need some advice!” The difference there is , they lost everything. We knew we’d be able to go home eventually. But I gotta tell you, I truly feel more of an understanding of what they must have been going through………….. and still are going through now. It’s all so very violating!

So when we were able to go home, I rushed at the opportunity. Kari on the other hand said she needed one more night at the Cooper’s. I understood, but just had to go home! I helped all that day clean up, while she was at work. I cleaned bathrooms, did dishes, washed bedding, emptied trash, did our laundry, cleaned floors, and of course cleaned up dog poop from the lawn areas. I was packed and ready to leave when she arrived. She was very apologetic, although I totally understood and didn’t mind. All I knew was, I was going to be in my bed, in my house, with my things in a matter of hours.

And this is what I found……….

 It looked like

we lived on the moon! I had a beautiful creek in my backyard that was canopied by a forest of Oak trees and Pines. It was stark, blackended, and looked like something out of a Tim Burton nightmare. My guest house, (shown here) had blown windows that had it gotten any hotter, would have ignited inside the building. That was my oldest daughter’s bedroom in there for her entire high school years, and the other room was my storage room with all our camping, skiing, and holiday stuff. We were very lucky! Still, it made me sick!

The dozer made a break but still the lawn and ground cover burned right up to the building. Just not the super high flames that might have been there, had not the dozer come through. All our irrigation is shot, broken, or melted. Oh well.

The final post about my personal experience with the Clayton Fire will be either tomorrow or Monday, September 12th. I will tell you about my drive the next day into the town, where I photographed the original Fire Department of Lower Lake, my grandmother’s house when I was a little girl, and countless other friend’s homes in the town of mine and my husband’s childhood.

The town of Lower Lake is resilient. We have proven that, just as those who lost it all in the Valley Fire are resilient. This entire community has been damaged, with over 40% of our landmass in Lake County having burned in the last year. But we will not lie down and parish. We will get back up, brush ourselves off and be stronger for it!

“What doesn’t kill us, will make us stronger!” ……….. God Bless Us.