For some Sonoma Valley fire survivors, selling land is path to moving forward

If all had worked out as she planned, Barbara Naslund would be putting her Glen Ellen home on the market about now.

Naslund knew how she would have staged her home of 32 years, on 1.3-acres off Bonnie Way. In preparation, she had trimmed the oak trees that graced her property. She had a photographer come out and take pictures inside and out so she would have some memories.

But her plans were upended in the early hours of Oct. 9. Naslund was sleeping when she was awakened at about 1:30 a.m. by the smell of smoke. She got up and looked out to see her backyard ablaze.

With no time to spare, and still in her pajamas, she scooped up her dog and headed for the garage to make her escape. The first time she tried her garage door opener, nothing happened. She tried it a second time, and it worked.

As she was backing around, she figures she must have backed into her house, but didn’t notice it until much later.

“I was one of the last people to leave Bonnie Way,” she said. “The street was in flames.”

She managed to make it to her daughter and son-in-law’s residence in Bennett Valley. While her son-in-law, who is a CHP officer, got dressed and hurried into work, Naslund and her daughter headed to Hollister to stay with relatives.

“As we were driving down (Highway) 101 at that time of the morning, there was no other traffic on the road - except for a stream of ambulances who were also heading south,” she said.

It didn’t dawn on her until later that the ambulances were probably evacuating hospital or nursing home patients.

She didn’t know what happened to her home. It would take several days. She heard it survived. She heard it burned. She didn’t know.

Finally, her son-in-law, the CHP officer, went by the house, what was left of it, and took some pictures.

Then she realized, “I have to find a place to live.”

She stumbled on an apartment close to her daughter after finding out that the person who originally took it canceled. With the help of her insurance company, she moved in.

“I had planned on selling my house anyway,” she said. “I already had an agent.”

But now there was no home to sell.

“I could hardly go back,” she said. “It was horrible. I couldn’t bring myself to sift through the debris looking for things.” So her daughter and son-in-law went back and sifted through the ashes to see if there was anything they could salvage.

“I lost my photos, my family heirlooms, and I lost 10 quilts,” she said.

She hasn’t put her lot on the market yet.

“I’m going to take my time and not rush into anything,” she said.

Naslund, 63, a retired middle school teacher, wants to get the lot cleared and have some of the trees removed.

“It’s hard to look at the ruins,” she said. “My daughter grew up there. … She got married in the backyard. It’s hard on her. She still had lots of things in the house.”

She wants to come back and weed her flower beds for one last time once the weather turns warm.

“I’m not quite ready yet,” she said. “This is like the last part of the grieving process.”

All of her neighbors are planning to rebuild. “I’m the only one who’s not,” she said.

Cleanup nearly complete

To sell or rebuild is a big question, but many aren’t at that stage yet - the major debris cleanup from the October firestorm is near completion. Figures from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as of April 19 show the Corps has cleaned up 3,686 parcels in Sonoma County and has removed almost 1.9 million tons of debris in the county.

The agency has completed 100 percent of major debris removal in Glen Ellen, Kenwood and the greater Sonoma Valley.

And in the three-county area, Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino, the Corps has removed more than 2.2 million tons of debris.

“Right now we’re 92.6 percent complete,” said Ed Johnson, a public information officer with the Corps.

“We still have some remote locations in rural Mendocino and Napa counties that are hard to reach,” he said.

There’s a lot of unknown factors in those remote locations such as whether they can get across some of the small bridges to reach some of the sites.

Johnson, who was transferred to the job this month, didn’t have an estimate on when the Corps would wrap things up.

“We’re here until we’re done,” he said.

Survivors looking around

A number of burned-out properties are starting to show up in the real estate market. And the number of people who were burned out and have decided to buy elsewhere is growing.

Christopher Oscar, a real estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens in Sonoma said valley lots burned in the October fires have been appearing on the market.

“There’s quite a few on the market right now,” he said.

He was looking through the Multiple Listing Service and found a piece of property in Santa Rosa where the house had burned down, but the ad listed that much of the infrastructure was in place and the swimming pool and pool house survived and were ready to go.

“We’ve also noticed at a quite a few open houses lately, that there are more people who are looking for move-in ready houses instead of waiting to rebuild,” he said.

While he doesn’t have any clients who are listing burned out properties, he closed a deal recently representing the seller where the buyer lost their house.

Permit department busy

Still, not many are also unwilling to leave their property behind. The county’s planning department has been busy issuing permits for people looking to rebuild. As of April 20, Permit Sonoma had issued permits for 62 single-family units, seven second units, 16 bridges, three guesthouses, two mobile homes and one second mobile home.

According to the county database, 11 permits have been issued in Glen Ellen, four in Kenwood and one in Sonoma.

Maggie Fleming, communications manager with the county planning department, said fire survivors receive extra attention. A separate permit center has been set up for them and the process has been streamlined, with a three-to-five-day turnaround time for comments. Applicants can submit their paperwork online to make the process easier.

Fees have also been reduced for fire survivors.

“We encourage property owners to contact our permit center directly to get a fee estimate specific to their property,” Fleming said. And the planning department has hired an outside vendor to provide additional staffing in order to process the rebuilding permits.

Naslund, however, won’t be among the applicants.

For now, she’s going to stay in her apartment in Santa Rosa. And she’s decided she wants to stay in the city.

“Once the lot sells, I’ll close that part of my life and move on,” she said. “I don’t have the energy or desire to rebuild. Never again will I live in the country. I’m going to stay in the city.”