Wine country: Battle-weary residents fight another fire.
HEALDSBURG >> As smoke filled the sky last week and evacuation alerts started beeping on cellphones, many Sonoma County residents had one thought: Not again.
With the Walbridge Fire threatening Healdsburg and Guerneville last weekend, worries about whether to evacuate, what to pack and where the fire might hit were all too familiar. The area had been scorched by the Tubbs Fire in 2017, and then again by Kincade last year.
The devastation of those fires has worn down residents, and with California’s fire season just beginning, people fear there could be many more fearful weeks by the end of fall. Some say if it weren’t for their careers, their mortgages, or simply their love for the area, they’d leave.
“It’s like, ‘here we go again,’” Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said as he stood on a ridge along Chemise Road in Healdsburg, watching plumes of smoke billow frighteningly close to homes in his district below. “Everybody you talk to says, ‘here we go again,’ with tired eyes.”
But while they weren’t prepared for the Tubbs Fire, which killed 22 after tearing through Santa Rosa, they are prepared now, he said.
County officials this year ramped up their efforts toward fire defense, requiring residents to do more to manage flammable vegetation on their properties. The new rules forced Gore to spend thousands of dollars and a large chunk of time clearing his property, he said — but it was necessary.
“Whether we like it or not, this is our new normal,” he said. “So adapt.”
Robin Froman, a 68-yearold retiree from Texas, has seen firsthand how destructive California’s fires can be: Her house, on Toyon Drive in a rural, unincorporated area east of Healdsburg, suffered heavy damage during the Kincade Fire last fall.
“We lost a stone patio, wooden deck, we lost everything in the garden. It came right up to the house,” Froman said. The interior of the house suffered heavy water and smoke damage.
On Friday, she described sitting at home, waiting and watching another fire approach.
It feels “not good,” she said.
Even for people who didn’t lose a home, most of the residents in this area have some kind of post-traumatic stress from suffering through fire after fire, said Alanna Wargula, a doctor who lives in Santa Rosa and works in Healdsburg.
Though her house was not damaged in the Tubbs Fire, her clinic was forced to shut down for two months after last year’s Kincade fire.
“It’s scary because you always wonder when your neighborhood’s going to be next,” said Wargula, 45.
She now has a police scanner app and two fire apps on her phone, and every time there are high winds, she pays close attention. “You just kind of sit on the edge of the seat until it passes,” she said.
The fires have gotten so bad, she said, coupled with the state’s high taxes, that if it didn’t mean starting over in her career, Wargula would leave California.
For other residents, the Walbridge Fire was something new. Jen Higgins and Richard Butori of Lambert Bridge Winery were on Chemise Road on Friday evening surveying the winery’s property and trying to assess whether it would make it through the night. In the distance, massive plumes of smoke rose around them.
They’d seen fires before, but never like this, never so close. “I’m so nervous,” Butori said. “I’ve never been this nervous in my entire life.”
Several homes and other structures along Wallace Creek Road in Healdsburg burned to the ground Friday. A small Buddha statue stood unscathed inside the charred remains of what used to be the entrance to someone’s home.
The blackened knob from the front door lay in a pile of rubble next to the statue. The rest of the house was destroyed. Across the street, a resident sat on the railing of the bridge leading to his house — which miraculously survived the flames. At least so far.
The resident, who didn’t want to give his name, mostly lives in San Francisco but had been sheltering in place during the pandemic in his Healdsburg weekend home. He and his husband evacuated Wednesday night.
When they returned Friday morning to check on the house, they expected it would be gone. It wasn’t, but that relief was bittersweet.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel comfortable here,” the resident said. “Look at my neighbors’ homes. Those are my friends. Even if our home survives, it’s not going to be a happy place.”
Despite that heartache — and those likely to come, as fire season continues — he has no plans to sell the house.
“Healdsburg is the best place,” he said. “I absolutely love this town.”
That strong love for the community is what’s keeping residents going through this tough time, Gore said. He’s met local firefighters who had been deployed to wildfires in Southern California but fought to get sent back up here to defend their hometowns.
And along with that exhaustion in residents’ eyes as they deal with another fire, there’s also resolve, Gore said. “We’re a battle-hardened bunch now.”