Grit, tight bonds sustain victims as Valley fire recovery inches forward in Lake County

Sept. 12--COBB -- The green patch of lawn and vibrant flowers taking root outside the newly built Boggs Mountain home of Ron Haskett and Kathleen Ahart stand out as a bright splash of color against a landscape bereft of its once-thick woods and cool shade.

A year ago today, the Valley fire made its destructive tear through this rural swath of southern Lake County, and the pine forest and mountain neighborhoods it torched are still unrecognizable in some areas.

The single-story house that Haskett and Ahart have rebuilt on their 1/3 -acre lot was the first non-prefab home to be completed in the fire's wake, a sign of the revival that many residents, business people and government officials here desperately seek and support.

"We came every night after work to see the progress," Haskett said.

Around them, where dozens of homes once stood, are roughly graded lots where owners' plans remain in question. Much the same patchwork extends across the 120 square miles burned by the Valley fire. It roared to life in the early afternoon of Sept. 12 amid gusting, erratic winds that drove flames across 18 miles of rugged terrain, torching 40,000 acres in the first 12 hours.

By the time it was fully contained in mid-October, it had killed at least four people -- a fifth person remains missing -- destroyed 1,281 homes and 1,955 structures in all, making it the state's third-most destructive fire, with damage estimated at $1.5 billion.

It was the largest of four big blazes that have raged across this drought-parched landscape in the past 13 months -- including the 4,000-acre Clayton fire last month. Together they carved out an uneven path of ruin, leveling whole blocks in places but leaving homes on many others untouched.

The region's bid at recovery appears similarly spotty and slow-going, as crisis-weary residents wrestle with the decision to rebuild, staring down a warren of financial challenges, planning decisions and bureaucratic hurdles. Many who have vowed to return still live in recreational vehicles parked on bare lots. Those who've secured building permits display them like the hard-won trophies they are.

"What's bringing people back here are the people," said Andy Alexander, whose house in the Gifford Springs area of Boggs Mountain was damaged but survived the fire that destroyed all but two others in his neighborhood. "It's a pretty tight-knit group."

By June, 1,848 insurance claims, totaling more than $434.4 million, had been paid out for destroyed and damaged houses. About 1,100 properties have been scraped clean of debris and toxic wreckage left by the fire through the help of the state's CalRecycle agency.

Yet only about 199 residential building permits had been issued at last count, including 47 for manufactured houses. Only 22 projects in total have been completed.

For-sale signs, in some areas, reflect a growing wave of properties coming on the market, listed by those who would leave the rebuilding to someone else, according to Timothy Toye, a local real estate agent.

Most residents know someone driven out of the county by terror and grief caused by the fire. Many have simply given up on the region, unable to face the frustration and uncertainty of rebuilding after so long a dislocation, or unwilling to confront reminders of what was.

Bill Chambers moved to a rental property he owns in nearby Loch Lomond, which was largely spared by the fire, after his house in the Gifford Springs community near Boggs Mountain State Forest went up in flames. He said he lost everything he loved about his home -- the forest, the wildlife, the view. He won't be moving back.

"My home was a double lot with a beautiful view of the mountain across from me. It all burned up," said Chambers, 64.

But it's a nice property, and someone from outside the area, who doesn't know how it used to be, may enjoy the new landscape, he said. "They won't look around and see the ghosts of what was," he said.

Among the various factors affecting the choice dominating life in this region -- rebuild or relocate -- money is chief among them. More than a quarter of those who lost their primary residences were uninsured, according to county officials, and others weren't insured to the levels they would need to completely rebuild.

Modern land-use regulations present significant obstacles in communities originally built during a more permissive era -- affecting Anderson Springs, particularly -- and some rebuilding plans have been stymied by things like mandatory stream setbacks, fire prevention codes, sewer issues and other health and safety issues.

Some who rented or owned second homes have chosen not to bother with rebuilding, and still others decided to settle elsewhere, given the opportunity, due to age, declining family size or other life circumstances. Some of the properties left behind were bank-owned, Lake County Community Development Director Robert Massarelli said.

In a county survey of 350 people who had lost their primary residences in the fire, 20 percent of respondents said they would not be rebuilding, though six months have passed since then. A quarter weren't sure of their plans in February when the survey was conducted. About 55 percent expected to build anew on their parcels, though their stated time lines already have proved optimistic.

"It's a common expectation, 'We're going to recover really fast, and people are going to be back,'" said Massarelli, who until recently worked in Florida, where hurricanes have dealt similarly devastating blows to communities. "Five years later there's still work being done."

Contractor Greg Clouse lost two homes in Cobb, one occupied by his son and daughter-in-law, the other a rental unit.

"Everybody was underinsured," he said.

He said many of the victims with whom he's crossed paths settled with insurers for less than it would actually take to rebuild, though some can dip into reimbursements for belongings lost to the fire.

In nearby Anderson Springs, a hopeful notice has been painted onto a narrow slab of concrete, graced with a small Buddha statue. "Coming Soon! Erica and Angelo's Dream House," it says.

But perhaps nowhere is there as much uncertainty as in this devastated creekside community of 197 homes, only 19 of which survived the flames. Two of Anderson Springs' residents were among the four people known to have died in the fire.

Built around a quaint 19th century resort, the village is criss-crossed by two creeks, and at least 115 of the original home parcels are too close to the water to accommodate septic tanks under existing state and county regulations, or are simply too small or oddly configured or have the wrong soils.

The community, about 4 miles from Highway 29 and downtown Middletown, remains eerily silent, though a number of residents have returned to their properties and are living in recreational vehicles until they can build.

To address those problems and support the area's rebirth, funding plans were unveiled this summer for a new $7.5 million community sewer system, one that Jan Coppinger, the county's special district administrator, said she hoped would be in construction by mid-year, a time line she conceded was "very optimistic."

In the meantime, many residents have voiced frustration with delays, mixed messages and what many feel is misplaced stringency over new building standards. Jacqueline Bartlett, who lost her hillside Anderson Springs home, called it "trying to fit this square peg into a round hole."

Anderson Springs resident Frank Werts said he's finding it hard to stay patient while he waits for approval of home construction plans provided to him by a Santa Rosa-based charity called Project Hope. He's ready to replace the small A-frame home he occupied for 2 1/2 years before the fire with the help of a $32,900 federal emergency grant.

He's living in a donated RV and kept busy with landscaping tasks, building a cinderblock wall along the property line and planting saplings around his lot.

"I just want to do something. I just want to get going," Werts, 53, said. "The one year is coming up and I don't know where I'm going to be."

But for many, the days ahead provide opportunities for renewal in communities more closely bonded than ever, brought together by shared loss and need.

Barbara Flynn, a 45-year Cobb resident, restaurateur and member of the new Cobb Area Council, said some who initially opted out of rebuilding are rethinking their decisions.

"They're seeing progress, and they're seeing these beautiful homes -- that it's doable," she said.

The Cobb community, where 445 homes were destroyed, is among the busiest construction zones.

On Summit Drive, just off Highway 175, six houses are nearing completion. All of them have decks that take advantage of vast new vistas opened by the flames.

"I think it'll be fantastic," said Mark Calegari, a 50-year-old heavy equipment operator, who is among those getting ready to return to the neighborhood. "I think the people who are building are the people who really want to be up here," he said.

Across the highway, on Summit Boulevard, Ahart and Haskett say their spirits are lifted by every hint of progress -- whether it's an outhouse being delivered for use during a neighbor's construction or the lights going on in a newly inhabited home at night.

They miss the tall trees that once surrounded their place but have a bountiful vegetable garden they couldn't have grown before, when their backyard was in full shade. And the views from Cobb, no longer shrouded by forest, "are amazing now," Ahart said.

Cobb Mountain Elementary School Principal David Leonard said he alternates between feeling like he's making progress and wondering, "How can this be dragging on?"

He and his wife are still working through plans for a new home on their 2-acre Rainbow Drive property where they have lived in a fifth-wheel trailer since June. Tending a small garden buoys Leonard's spirits.

"Every day that I'm there it just makes me feel more at home," he said.

He was thrilled to see his school retain most of its students. The school year started with 146, compared to 163 a year ago.

"I think you have to have that sense of optimism; otherwise this would eat you alive," Leonard said. "It's been a really hard year."

Back in the Gifford Springs area, Andy Alexander and his wife, Kathleen, took in the view from their back porch of a neighborhood rising from the ashes. Around their home spared from the flames were homes in mid-construction, portable outhouses for workers and fall election signs.

"This is really the only neighborhood that's rebuilt to this magnitude," Alexander said.

About 9 miles east, Grizzly Court in the large Hidden Valley Lake subdivision represents the other end of the spectrum. Eleven homes here were obliterated by the fire, and so far only one is being rebuilt. On one vacant lot in a former patio area, a foot-tall Buddha statue sits, its head split open. Across the street is a jumbled collection of other ceramic survivors -- two cockatoos, a turtle, some vases, mugs, a teapot and an angel.

In all, this gated community of more 2,300 developed lots and the nearby Rancho subdivision lost a combined 144 homes.

Carol Hutchinson, Lake County's chief administrative officer, lives in a Hidden Valley Lake home that escaped the fire. Her neighbors' homes were destroyed.

"My tears are never far beneath the surface, and I can only imagine the grief of my neighbors who lost everything," she said. "My life and my psyche were forever changed by this fire. And the heartache has been re-triggered with each and every new fire since."

Ten miles south on Highway 29, Middletown -- home to 1,300 people and the largest of the burned communities outside of Hidden Valley Lake -- lost the most homes in the fire, with 562 destroyed, including addresses in Anderson Springs. East of the main drag, amid the buzz of rebuilding activity, the fire's path a year ago is evident in scores of empty lots.

Alice Bacca and her boyfriend, Travis Curtis-Bryant, lost her home to the Clayton fire and recently moved into an RV on one of the building sites where he works. She said the past year has been an exhausting ordeal and the downtown is still "kind of eerie at night."

But she said there's joy in the completion of new homes. She recalled one that was about to be occupied by a family with two little girls and lots of pets.

"You can see life coming back into it," said Bacca, 45.

A block or two up Jefferson Street, Rosie Reyes stood outside her father's house, which survived with only feet to spare between it and the flames that spread up St. Helena Creek. Reyes, 27, pointed out nearby properties owned by two uncles -- one under construction and the other where plans are still being plotted.

Many others who lost homes in the neighborhood grew up together, so it was painful to see all of those who were displaced, Reyes said.

"It's left a lot of people on edge," she said. "But it's also brought people a lot closer. People look out for each other."

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or [email protected]. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB. Staff Writer Glenda Anderson is at 707-462-6473 or [email protected]. On Twitter @MendoReporter.

An earlier version of this story provided an inaccurate sum for the number of homes destroyed on Grizzly Court in Hidden Valley Lake. The correct number is 11.

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