Bay Area fires: Hard-hit communities face a long process to rebuild

Aug. 28--As thousands of evacuees return to the places where their homes once stood, fire-torn communities are bracing for the next nightmare: Rebuilding.

With huge fires still smoldering across more than 800,000 acres of Northern California, officials don't yet have a final tally of how many homes have been lost or a timeline for taking the first steps toward rebuilding -- starting with the complicated process of clearing toxic debris, ash and waste from burned-out lots.

But judging by the Tubbs and Camp fires that tore through Northern California in 2017 and 2019, replacing homes is a process that's likely to take years.

"Once we can get in and get a full idea of the scope of the damage, we'll have a better idea of what the debris looks like," Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, told this news organization. "It's too early to say who exactly would be responsible and what the scope would be."

Since the record-breaking LNU, CZU and SCU fire complexes broke out about 10 days ago, more than 2,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed across eight Bay Area counties. The North and East Bay's massive LNU Complex has been the most devastating, burning more than 1,300 buildings, while the CZU Complex in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties has torched another 799, including 554 single-family homes as of Friday, according to Cal Fire.

As firefighters continue to stem the spread of the flames and give the OK for some of the roughly 136,000 evacuees to start heading home, federal and state agencies are racing to decide what comes next for the damaged and destroyed lots. President Donald Trump already has declared the California wildfires a federal disaster, allowing the state, local governments and individuals to access relief funds, along with a host of other services such as housing and unemployment help.

So far, more than 3,000 Californians have signed up for Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance, said regional spokesperson Ken Higginbotham. But that figure is expected to skyrocket as more regions reopen and report precisely how much damage has been done. Starting Friday, FEMA teams headed out to the eight Bay Area counties to set up registration centers.

"This is gonna be a marathon. It's not gonna be a sprint. It's a lot to deal with," Higginbotham said.

For residents already reeling from losing a home, the uncertainty feels overwhelming. Carol and Bruce Schafer, whose 20-acre Vacaville property burned in the LNU inferno, have been puzzling over their options in their hotel room, from finding a nearby rental while they rebuild to moving away.

"To be honest with you, we're really frustrated," Carol Schafer said. "We're honestly thinking right now about just cashing out and leaving the state."

When a home burns down, the land around it is littered with the charred remnants of building materials and all the items left behind, creating a toxic smorgasbord of melted plastic, carpeting, asbestos and propane.

In the past, lugging away that waste has created a host of headaches for homeowners and the government. After the devastating 2017 North Bay fires razed more than 5,000 homes -- about 3,000 of which were located in Santa Rosa alone -- the federal U.S. Army Corps stepped in to clear the debris. That effort ultimately cost about $1.3 billion and led to a litany of criticism, including complaints that contractors dug too deep into the ground and left unnecessarily large holes. The following year, after the Camp Fire burned more than 14,000 homes, the state chose to oversee the cleanup process.

That painful history is "an important point" of consideration for the state, Ferguson said. All options are on the table, including a patchwork solution in which local jurisdictions handle smaller debris missions and state or federal partners oversee larger ones.

Even after lots are ready for new construction to begin, actually standing up new homes could take years. California's planning and building process remains infamously slow, and for years, the state has failed to keep up with its housing goals.

After the 2017 fires obliterated a full 5% of Santa Rosa's housing stock and destroyed almost the entire Coffey Park neighborhood, the city relaxed its development rules and fees to lure housing developers and builders to the region. Even so, by February 2020, Santa Rosa had just completed building its 1,000th home -- making up about one-third the total number lost in the Tubbs Fire.

In the broader Bay Area, local politicians are already looking to kick start rebuilding by expediting the permitting process. In Santa Cruz County, where rural communities such as Bonny Doon have been hard-hit by the CZU Complex of fires, Supervisor Ryan Coonerty texted his Sonoma County counterparts all week to get advice.

Based partially off that feedback, Coonerty is proposing a one-stop shop that includes public works, planning, fire and other relevant departments so residents can submit permitting documents just once. To process applications faster, the county will also consider bringing back retired employees.

"As long as people are building back on the same footprint, we're going to make it as simple and easy as possible," Coonerty promised.

For now, local officials in Santa Cruz and across California remain laser-focused on the basics: Unblocking roads, clearing fallen trees and checking water and power lines. In Sonoma County, "the end is in sight" for the last batch of evacuees to return, Sheriff Mark Essick said during a Friday briefing.

"Some of you are discovering that you've lost your homes, and this is a really emotional time for many people," Essick said. "We are incredibly sorry for your loss."

Leonardo Castañeda contributed to this report.

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