One year later, Fallbrook community devastated by Lilac fire is moving forward

Dec. 09--A year ago, after the Lilac fire roared through the Rancho Monserate Country Club in Fallbrook, destroying 75 homes, residents put up a sign near the front entrance.

"Rancho Strong," it read.

The words turned out to be more than wishful thinking.

Most of the houses that burned down have been replaced, or soon will be. People are returning to the place they call home, to a close-knit senior community of about 400 residents that's tucked up against a mountain in the San Luis Rey River valley.

"It was hard, we had to learn a lot, but we got through it," said Jim Jones, who with his wife, Sandy, was among the first to run the gauntlet of insurance claims and construction plans, of government permits and utility hook-ups, of furniture-buying and new landscaping.

They moved back in mid-July, just seven months after the fire. Their street was particularly hard-hit, losing all two dozen of its manufactured houses, and now Jim Jones jokes that they might need to change the name to Hollywood Boulevard because everything is new and shiny.

Up and down the street, crews are busy -- finishing the cement work on new curbs, erecting metal carports, installing mailboxes. Whenever one of the new pre-built homes is trucked in, the owners sit nearby in lawn chairs, sipping champagne.

"It's fun to see people happy again," Sandy Jones said.

Not everyone's recovery has gone smoothly. Some residents have been delayed by financial problems or construction backlogs. Others decided not to come back and have sold their empty lots to investors or developers.

But there's no mistaking the air of normalcy that's settling in, and the experience there may offer some lessons -- and some hope -- for the thousands of other people in California just now beginning the journey back from ruinous wildfires.

At Rancho Monserate, the holiday decorations are up again outside the clubhouse. The annual Christmas dinner -- $12 for Honey Baked Ham, scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, salad, rolls, apple pie -- drew a capacity crowd.

And the December newsletter is filled with items about daily life -- how one resident set an 18-hole record on the golf course, how donations are being collected again for the Fallbrook Food Pantry, how the Supper Club went to a Thai restaurant in November and had sweet rice with mango.

A year ago, after the community lost one-third of its houses to the fire, almost none of that seemed possible.

Starting over

Rancho Monserate sits off Old Highway 395, west of Interstate 15 and south of state Route 76.

The property dates back to a Mexican land grant in 1846, when Governor Pio Pico gave his brother-in-law 13,323 acres in what would become the Bonsall and Fallbrook townships.

Once home to 13,000 sheep, 3,000 head of cattle and 300 horses, it was turned into a mobile-home park in the early 1970s, and a decade later was one of the first in the state to convert from rental spaces to private ownership. At least one resident of each unit has to be age 55 or older.

There were 232 homes there when the fire hit on Dec. 7, 2017. It started next to Interstate 15 -- the cause may never be known, although sparks from a chain-dragging truck is considered a strong possibility -- and got into a brush-filled gully that separates the freeway from Old Highway 395.

Then it jumped into Rancho Monserate, moving so quickly residents in some cases had only minutes to escape. Steffani Smith's Subaru was spattered with red retardant from a firefighting plane as she fled, the flames so close and hot they melted the car's windshield wipers.

The 62-year-old disabled widow got out with her dog, Donut, some of her paintings, a few important documents, and little else. When her house was destroyed, so were the medals her late husband earned fighting in the Vietnam War, and the American flag that draped his casket. Their wedding photos. Things her mother had made for her.

She's spent the last year living nearby in a rented house in an orchard. Her replacement home was trucked to her lot on Halloween, but it will take a few months to do the finish work: drywall, floors, utility hook-ups. She hopes to be in by mid-January.

"The old house was built in 1974 so everything about this is an upgrade," she said on a recent weekday as she walked around the perimeter of her place. "And I've never had a house that's brand new. I'm excited."

Her house is the same size as the old one. Same exterior color, too -- blue. But other residents have used the devastation as an opportunity to enlarge their homes, or change the layout.

When the Joneses rebuilt, Jim wanted room out back for barbecues and fruit trees. Sandy wanted decorative pillars on the back porch and a farmhouse sink in the kitchen. They got all of that, along with siding and decking built out of composite material that's less likely to burn than wood.

The couple lost everything in the fire because when it started they were shopping at Costco in San Marcos. He misses his Point Loma High School letterman's jacket and his "cherry" 2005 Ford Ranger. She's most upset about the family heirlooms: photos, her wedding dress, letters her dad sent to her mom during World War II, recipes.

"People tell you it's just stuff, but it's more than that," she said.

One day a few months ago, a box arrived unexpectedly in the mail. A relative who had been in their wedding party sent them copies of the photos from the ceremony to replace those destroyed in the fire.

The photos are framed now and hanging in the hallway. Next September will be the couple's 50th anniversary.

Feeling lucky

Dan and Pat Damon had no homeowners insurance. The policy had expired and the insurance company declined to renew it. They were looking for new coverage when the fire hit.

They'd paid cash for the house six years ago and were on a glide path into retirement. A professional musician for 40 years, he was cutting back on his performances and looking forward to playing more golf. She was taking it easier, too; she has bad knees and can't get around the way she used to.

Now, at age 70, he's working full-time again, with shows five nights in a row this week. But he's not complaining. "I'm happy for the work," he said.

They took out a loan to pay for their replacement house and moved in five months ago. It's three bedrooms now instead of two, so he can have his music room -- formerly in a shed -- indoors. He was able to decorate its walls with photos and other mementos from his career because his sister in New York had saved copies.

"I'm lucky she had them," he said.

Luck comes up a lot when they talk about what they've been through.

They were at an estate sale one day a few months ago when they ran into someone who remembered seeing Dan perform in Hemet. The Damons picked out some furniture -- almost everything in the house now is second-hand -- and were headed to the bank to withdraw the necessary cash when their cellphone rang.

The acquaintance from Hemet had paid for the furniture.

"Sometimes people ask you the 'Why me?' question," Pat said. "For me, the 'why' is so I could have my eyes opened to what people really are, and what they are is good. People have been so kind and generous to us."

Their Christmas tree is a hand-me-down, too, picked up at a "Christmas in September" event at the Rancho Monserate clubhouse. Residents donated holiday decorations for those who lost theirs in the fire.

That sense of community is one reason most of those left homeless a year ago have decided to come back. "It's peaceful here, and quiet, and people take care of each other," Smith said.

Financially, many of them didn't have a choice. The houses in Rancho Monserate, most of them two-bedrooms and about 1,500 square feet, generally cost less than $350,000. Where else are you going to find that in San Diego County?

But that doesn't mean some of them didn't explore other options. They're still spooked by fire, anxious any time they see smoke in the sky.

"I didn't want to come back," Sandy Jones admitted. She figures the flames will return some day. She wanted to live somewhere that feels safer. But where, her husband asked, would that be?

"You can't get away from fires any more," he said.

The Damons feel the same way. They've adopted a new motto, one that seems to fit the vibe of the whole community, one year after disaster.

"Always forward," Dan said. "Never backward."

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