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wildfire recovery

Choosing Recovery: A Wildfire Remembrance

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It’s been a decade since the Black Forest Wildfire swept through our community, destroying over 14,000 pine covered acres, burning over 500 homes (including ours, see below), structures and killing countless pets and most tragically, two of our neighbors.

Edith Wolford’s cabin, before the fire:

After the fire: an all-too familiar scene

Tragedy manifests itself in different ways. For some, they can’t get past the lifetime of possessions they lost, as well as homes where some raised generations of family members. It may still haunt their dreams. For others, they’ve been able to move past the events of that day and the struggles we all faced to rebuild lives and homes.

We describe life by this one major milestone: “before the fire” and “after the fire” define segments of our lives. Weddings, memorable trips, when we got the new car, etc. are measured against the date of June 11, 2013.

Like chapters in a book, the wildfire is a dog-eared favorite we return to so we can make sense of it all and how the experience changed us. If not for the fire, (as the insurance adjusters often said) how would our lives be different now? What would we not have learned?

The “new normal” wasn’t normal at all. If you rebuilt, you were on familiar land but lived in unfamiliar settings. It was eerie; like living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. We got used to our new surroundings and memories of the old walls began to fade. Now, when we flip through old photos, it’s like looking back at another lifetime.

For some, tragedy struck twice with a new house fire, a serious health problem, an injury or death of someone dear. The fire was just another traumatic event on top of what folks were already trying to cope with. For others, the experience of rebuilding was filled with insurance and new construction complications that added significant stress to the recovery process. It compounded the experience and doubled the work.

The fire impacted people no matter what their loss, evacuation experience or whether they returned to the Forest or moved elsewhere.

Their reactions now, ten years later?

  • We’ve moved on and just tried to get over it.
  • You don’t get any do-overs in life, so there’s no use in stewing about it.
  • We don’t want to be reminded, so we don’t discuss it.
  • The Waldo Canyon fire took our first home and the Black Forest Wildfire took our second home a year later. We’ve moved back to town for good.
  • It helped me learn that people are what’s most important, not the “stuff” we fill our lives with.
  • We learned you can get through tough times if you take it one step at a time.
  • My neighbor is still struggling with the losses. I try to be there for them.
  • Our home is much nicer now. We miss our old place, but this is a great improvement.

That should be our goal. To aim for improvement, physically, mentally and emotionally in whatever way works best. Few of us have followed the same recovery path.

“We have a choice to make every day,” says Joshua Becker, the author of the Becoming Minimalist blog and numerous books.

I would ask, do we choose to move on and create a new life, or do we choose to carry negative experiences around our neck like an emotional boulder?

We always have a choice. Thankfully, the Black Forest community has chosen recovery!

The Black Forest Wildfire Made Us Homeless

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So we were homeless, thanks to the Black Forest Wildfire.

And now, all of a sudden, the wait was over and there was so much to do. I had to call my other children and let them know the house was gone. I called the insurance company and filed a claim. I had to get organized. I had to find housing. We needed clothes. I had to contact the phone and cable companies. Where would our mail end up? Would my clients be okay if I postponed their work? Did I have to cancel garbage pickup or would that be obvious? So many decisions. So many pieces of one’s life tied up in your home.

The following Monday we went to the Disaster Assistance Center. I resisted at first, not wanting to feel like a Black Forest Wildfire refugee. But my mom went with me and we moved from one station to another, tying up loose ends, talking to people who’d learned from the fire the year before. I collected paperwork, a stuffed animal, a blanket and lots of data dumped into the big black hole my mind had become. I asked the same questions over again, unaware they’d already been answered.

By Wednesday, we’d found a place to live, thanks to my daughter and a friend whose dad had a rental available. There were 500 families looking for places to live, so we were so lucky to find something just miles from my folks and the property. The insurance company sent us an advance to get clothes, beds and kitchen basics. I’ve never hated shopping to much. I purchased a plastic filing tub to store all the papers. I started a journal and created a “Breadcrumbs” book where I wrote down events as they happened.

The day we went back to the site was surreal. I braced myself for an emotional onslaught and family members insisted we drive out together so I wouldn’t have to face it alone. I remember looking at the debris, the burned out rubble and upright chimney as if it were someone else’s place. We took pictures and poked through the ashes to find a few remains. And I kept waiting to feel something. I didn’t know why I wasn’t having a reaction.

But when we drove to my brother’s house, it hit me. The scene was so ugly. There was a rabbit caught in the fire and “frozen” in place standing up. Imagining that moment for the rabbit did me in. I wanted to get out of there. I felt sick. So I crawled back into the van and waited for the others, tears burning. My son was struggling too. I felt a strange bit of comfort knowing it wasn’t just me, over-reacting. We were in this together he and I. When we finally left and drove through the neighborhood, almost every house was burned to the ground. Taking pictures felt like such a desecration.

“Put one foot in front of the other,” my Mom and Dad kept saying. The steps to come would prove to be the hardest.

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