Magalia neighbors reunite after deadly Camp Fire
On Friday, four days after fire officials reopened a portion of her hometown, Betty Jean Hopper was sitting on a wooden bench seat at a familiar spot — Red Lion Pizza on Skyway Road.
The restaurant in Magalia had reopened just a couple of days before, ending a twoweek closure, and people started walking in just after lunchtime.
“There’s Joe!” she cried, hopping up and rushing over to give him a hug.
She and her husband, Suni, hadn’t heard from Joe Geurts since before the fire. She was relieved to see him alive, she said.
It was that way all week, the Hoppers said. They didn’t know who was still alive — who had escaped the fast-moving flames that blazed through the area in a matter of hours — until they saw them face-to-face.
Magalia, an unincorporated community of 11,000, was dealt a hard blow by the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history. While it escaped the complete devastation wrought on nearby Paradise, perhaps half of Magalia remains evacuated, and much of that area may have burned down.
A list of people unaccounted for since the fires stood at 605 on the Butte County Sheriff’s Office’s website Friday. Officials have confirmed at least 84 deaths from the fire.
For about five days, Betty Jean, 61, wasn’t sure if Suni was one of those deaths. He stayed behind to watch over the house as she fled to Los Molinos, a community about 50 miles northwest of Magalia, to escape the fire. Suni, 68, has lived in the area for 60 years — he wanted to stay as long as he could.
The Hoppers’ house was spared, but without cellphone service for several days, Suni couldn’t reach his family for almost a week.
“We were all praying,” Betty Jean said, rolling her eyes as she recounts the agony. The pair have been married for almost seven years, but their love story started long before that. They met as teenagers when Betty Jean visited Magalia on a summer camping trip but lost touch after Suni was sent to Korea during the war. They reconnected online more than 40 years later.
Now they are grappling with the loss in their community. When they see a familiar car pull up in the parking lot of Red Lion Pizza, they breathe a sigh of relief. There are hugs, handshakes and tears all around the restaurant as more people come in — a reunion after the fire.
With photos of customers and puzzles posted on the walls and low ceilings, Red Lion Pizza is a cozy spot. Staff and customers mostly know each other. People play pool in one room, and the smell of pizza and sandwiches fills the restaurant. It has long been a hangout for the area, and in a fire-charred community it stands out as a warm, bright spot. There weren’t many restaurants in Magalia before the fire, but after the blaze, it’s one of the few businesses standing that people can access. Others are in the still-evacuated zone. Down the road in Paradise, many of the businesses and almost all the homes were leveled in the fire.
Sharyn and Mike Selland, the owners of the restaurant, had reopened a couple of days before. They were happy to be able to run their business and provide a gathering spot in Magalia, but it hasn’t been easy. Delivery trucks haven’t been able to access the spot. So on Friday, Sharyn drove north to Forest Ranch — about a 40-minute drive from the restaurant — to buy ingredients and supplies.
“It’s been weird,” Sharyn said of trying to conduct business and get around Magalia.
That’s a sentiment many shared on Friday. Where there usually are cars whizzing by on Skyway, now there are few, said Arnie Hicks, 36, who lives a few miles away in Stirling City but often comes to Red Lion Pizza to hang out. “The road is dead.”
Next door, Kent Ash has been camping out in the real estate office where he has worked for more than 20 years. The home he has been renting was destroyed in the fire. He was able to get some books out but not much else, he said.
Ash, 70, mostly slept in his car until he was able to get back to Magalia earlier this week. Because he’s staying in the office, he has been back to work and fielding calls. The owner of the realty company lost some properties in the fire.
Ash was trying to maintain some normalcy. Connie Wenner, a friend who rents a station at a hair salon in Magalia that is in the evacuation zone, came by on Friday to cut Ash’s hair.
Wenner, 70, grew up in Paradise and Chico before moving to the Bay Area for years. She came back to the area when her husband retired. Their house in Magalia was spared by the fire, and they returned this week.
“I know it’ll be scary to see Paradise,” she said.
Johnny Pohmajevich, a friend of Wenner’s who was staying with Ash at the realty office, agreed.
“The devastation hasn’t happened yet,” Pohmajevich said, noting that with much of the area still closed, people may have not fully realized the scope of the damage. “The devastation happens when people come see the homes they’ve worked for — their dreams — burned up.”
He moved out of Magalia more than a year ago, he said, to the Delta. But he came back to help his former boss at the realty company handle the fire aftermath.
At 60, Pohmajevich doesn’t think Paradise will be fully rebuilt in his lifetime. That makes him sad, especially seeing the home his father had built for his mother decades ago was gone.
But he was hopeful as he recounted the generosity and the close ties of his neighbors. On Thanksgiving, he attended a free dinner at Red Lion Pizza, which the Sellands provided.
“What we do is stick together. This isn’t the end of our lives,” he said, shaking his head. “We will begin again.”