Even the ‘lucky’ ones unsure if they’ll stay
CHICO — On Honey Run Road, a once beautiful, quiet and secluded neighborhood ravaged by the Camp Fire, Julia Detweiler was one of the lucky ones.
“Want to see how lucky?” she said, as she walked toward the backyard of her untouched home.
She pointed to a clear dividing line in the grass between what the fire destroyed and what it spared. It burned all the trees behind her home and melted a cactus in her backyard. But, for whatever reason, the fire stopped within feet of her back porch. “We have no idea why,” she said. A stream of residents drove back into Honey Run Road — a cluster of homes on the eastern
outskirts of Chico — after the evacuation order was lifted Tuesday. The fire’s targets seemed indiscriminate — reducing a row of homes to ash while sidestepping the next. But while many families returned to rubble, neighbors with houses still intact were left to wonder how much is left of their home.
Even though her modest cream-colored house was spared, Detweiler isn’t sure she wants to stay. She moved into this home with her sister and her sister’s husband in July because of how gorgeous and quiet the neighborhood was, surrounded by trees and hills. Her house remained a relic of the neighborhood’s past — its Halloween decorations still hanging and lemon tree untouched.
But now any semblance of serenity outside her property is gone, replaced by an apocalyptic scene of charred hills, leveled homes and the banging of cleanup crews. How can you call that home?
“I don’t want to stay here,” she said, her eyes beginning to water. “It’ll take so long for it to come back to what it was: lush and gorgeous.”
But down the street, Greg and Cat Hartwell — whose home also survived — felt differently.
“It was beautiful and it’s gonna be beautiful again,” said 69-year-old Cat Hartwell, who lived in her home for 15 years.
The Hartwells’ home was largely spared — wind chimes, potted plants and all — except for a duck pen in their front yard, and part of their garage.
Their neighbors to the left and right completely lost their homes. Similar to Detweiler, they’re not sure why they got so lucky either.
“It’s beyond comprehension,” Greg Hartwell said. “All lost some, and some lost all.”
Crews still battling the monster Camp Fire that decimated Paradise and surrounding communities this month were bracing for a change in the weather Tuesday afternoon, as the skies at last promised to open up.
The predicted Wednesday rain will bring “pros and cons,” said Manuel Garcia, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection public information officer. It will relieve air quality and douse the area with badly needed moisture, slowing the fire’s growth and accelerating suppression efforts.
But firefighters may also face a new set of hazards, including possible runoff from soil so parched it’s unlikely to absorb much of the rain.
The massive fire trucks will also have to navigate down slick and narrow roads, between trees with roots weakened from the fires.
“It’s a balance of Mother Nature,” Garcia said.
The looming showers also prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood watch for the Camp Fire zone and other recently burned areas in the state, in effect from Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning.
By Tuesday night, the fire had charred 152,250 acres. It stood at 75 percent containment, according to Cal Fire, and at least 17,148 buildings, 12,637 of them homes, were lost in the blaze.
Officials on Tuesday continued lifting evacuation orders for swaths of land in the south and western areas of the burn zone, though many communities remained off limits.
Crews continued to comb the area for human remains, to match with DNA collected from relatives. To date they’ve located 81 remains, though that number is expected to rise. Butte County officials
“Like the last times we’ve evacuated, I said, ‘We’ll be back.’ But it’s one of those things that you’ll go to your grave thinking about.” Laurie Aanestad, who with husband Jeff, saw their home of 15 years destroyed
have tentatively identified 64 of the victims, and publicly identified six.
By Tuesday evening, 870 people were still considered missing. That was an increase of 171 people since the day before — due to investigators catching up on voicemail messages left by worried family and friends — though the figure was far below the high of more than 1,200 missing over the weekend. Officials were still crossing people off the list as evacuated residents were found staying in shelters or with family, and others confirmed deceased.
On Honey Run Road, one of the first areas to reopen to evacuees, Tammy Fashing said there’s no question she will remain in the neighborhood. Her home has been in the family since her grandparents bought it in 1957.
When she and her husband returned Tuesday, they found that the fire zigzagged through their property, devouring the dense forest behind them, but stopping short of their back patio and the 1,200 square feet they recently added to their light-green home. The blaze melted their shed, but spared their batting cage and dog run.
But the fire wasn’t so generous to the homes to their left and right, and across the street. As Fashing looked across the road, she admitted she had a bit of survivor’s guilt.
“I have a feeling a lot of people won’t rebuild,” she said. “But we want to keep it (the home) in the family.”
Across the street, Laurie and Jeff Aanestad picked through debris. Tears welling in her eyes, Laurie Aanestad listed things she’d lost: pictures, her 1971 Mickey Mouse collection, a new RV that was packed and ready to go for an upcoming trip to Doran Beach in Sonoma County.
“Like the last times we’ve evacuated, I said, ‘We’ll be back,’” she said, staring at the ruins. “But it’s one of those things that you’ll go to your grave thinking about.”
As soon as they learned that they had lost their home of 15 years, she and her husband jumped to buy a new house in Dayton, another small community across Highway 99 in Butte County. They knew if they waited, the housing stock in the rest of the area would be gone.
But moving away from this neighborhood will be difficult. The couple adored their home, nestled among the mountains, with an ample garage — now gone — and a back porch where they could sit in the morning and spot falcons.
The two of them spent hours on Tuesday wearing gardening gloves and picking through their former home, where they found a wedding band and some remnants of the Mickey Mouse collection. Rebuilding on this land isn’t completely out of the question, Jeff Aanestad said.
“Maybe we’ll rebuild, maybe we won’t.”