One year after October wildfires, Sonoma County cleaved by loss
Ever since she lost her Coffey Park home in the Tubbs fire, Amy Marlar has sometimes felt like she lives in a world apart.
Many people have been supportive and kind. But unless they've fled their home in terror in the middle of the night and lost everything they own, there is no way, she said, they can really understand the pain that still dogs her, a year later.
It can leave her feeling alone.
“When people say, ‘I didn't lose a home but my parents did, or my in-laws did, or a co-worker did,' it's frustrating,” she said. “It's not the same. It's not even close.”
Across town, Kimberly Hall still ruminates that her cottage in Bennett Valley didn't burn, while her parents lost their home - the house she grew up in. Her brother, who lived by their parents in the Mark West Springs area, was also left without a home.
“I honestly still struggle with that from time to time,” said Hall, who teaches second and third grades at Rincon Valley Christian School. Her family, she said, assures her she should not feel responsible.
“We have a strong faith in God and family and they remind me God is in control and has a reason why you still have your stuff.”
Hall nonetheless, still wrestles with guilt that it was her parents' house, the one she grew up in, filled with family memories and treasures, and not her tiny granny unit that burned to ash that night.
The impact of last year's fires remains deeply uneven. Scores lost loved ones, hundreds lost businesses and thousands lost their homes, filled with everything they owned, including the kind of “stuff” that can't be replaced, like photos, heirlooms, collections and cherished items with priceless sentimental value.
And yet, the bulk of North Bay residents were spared such pain. While exposed to the trauma that rocked the entire community, they returned to their homes with their families and possessions intact.
Divided community
The result is a community cleaved into two worlds: one occupied by those who suffered a significant loss, the other by those who did not.
As the one-year anniversary of the most destructive wildfire in California history approaches, life for many is back to normal. Charred properties have been cleaned up, lessening the visible scars. But for many people who suffered a personal loss, the nightmare continues as they deal with rebuilding homes and the emotional aftershocks of the trauma they endured that warm, windy night. Oct. 8 and 9, like Sept. 11, is burned into their psyche.
The disaster that stirred so much goodwill throughout the entire community also forged a raw kinship among the victims. Some make the effort to seek out those kindred spirits who, like it or not, are in the same grim club. They reach out through social media groups and gatherings of neighbors on empty lots and barren streets.
“I absolutely feel closer to the people who have lost their homes. They can relate to me and they understand the emotional toll it has taken on us,” said Marlar, 47, who had lived in her rental for 10 years. It is where she raised her daughter, Logyn, now 12. She also grew up in Coffey Park, so she lost not only her home but her community.
As she set out to rebuild her life after the fires, she first moved into a place off Petaluma Hill Road, but felt “like an outsider” in a place untouched by the fire.
“It just felt so weird to me. I spent my life in Coffey Park,” she admitted. Now she's back in a condo in northwest Santa Rosa, which feels more comfortable and familiar.
A need to connect
Peter Hess lost two homes in Cobb to the Valley fire in Lake County in 2015 as well as his parent's home in Larkfield last October. The uncanny string of fire losses stirred up deeply embedded post-traumatic stress he had been carrying around since 1962, when his family was forced to flee their Cobb home during the Widow Creek fire. He was 6 years old at the time. The home they eventually rebuilt is one of the two that burned in the Valley fire.
Hess found that his own need to connect with other fire victims was so compelling that he formed a closed Facebook group, “The Wildfire Home Loss Peer Support Group.” It has since expanded to 560 members, all survivors of fires from here to Alberta and Tennessee, who “understood wildfire so intimately and would be there for future people who came along.”
The idea came to him after he called the Red Cross mental health hotline and a woman at the other end advised him to wander the neighborhood looking for photos that might have slipped out of a photo album. She was reading from a script for tornado survivors.
The divide between those who lost homes or loved ones and those who did not, can sometimes be “rather acrimonious,” Hess said.
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