Funeral homes struggle with losses of their own
Employees at facilities throughout area ravaged by Camp Fire busy with their own recoveries, but say helping others through troubles is a source of comfort in itself
CHICO >> In the face of the historic loss of life from the Camp Fire, staffs at funeral homes and mortuaries in the region have been working tirelessly to accommodate the influx of victims and give their families the solace and closure that is the hallmark of their profession.
But what happens when the comforters are among the mourning, among the uprooted, among those trying to find steadiness amid all the tragedy?
“We all have our own personal stories. My own house burned down in the fire. My secretary’s house burned, and I have employees displaced,” said Marc Brusie, a Butte Creek Canyon resident and third-generation Chico funeral home owner whose business also runs two area cemeteries.
But helping others through their losses, Brusie said, can provide a source of comfort in itself.
“We feel pretty good about what we do in helping families navigate through this process,” he said. “It’s what we do every day.”
Most of the funeral homes that serve the area affected by the fire have deep roots in the region, and their staffs have drawn from that connection to carry on.
“This is difficult for all of us. We all love the community, we love Butte County, and we’re committed to helping people through the most difficult part of their lives,” said Bob Bracewell, who runs a funeral home in Chico and a second mortuary in Paradise, which was damaged by the fire and rendered inaccessible because of the town’s standing evacuation order.
Bracewell and some of his staff were among those who had to flee the fire as it descended on Magalia, Concow and Paradise, including an employee who rescued several people on her way out of town.
“It’s always been about keeping focus on the family that has lost somebody. Our situation is never as bad as theirs,” he said. “We’re dealing with a double set of grief here. I think a regular loss is overwhelming, but this loss is compounded because we’re seeing the destruction.”
Mortuaries in the region have received most of the victims who have been identified and released to their families, accounting for about half of the 85 people known to have died in the fire. Butte County, owing to its modest population, does not have a central morgue; funeral homes rotate an on-call duty for deaths where there are no pre-existing arrangements.
What’s more, Paradise’s three mortuaries — Newton-Bracewell, Paradise Chapel of the Pines and Rose Chapel — are out of commission because of fire damage and the town still being under evacuation.
But Bracewell said he and his counterparts are up to the task of serving the community members who perished in the fire.
“The funeral homes in Butte County are able to handle the situation,” he said. “We’re all working together.”
Adding to the complexity is that many of the victims had retired to Paradise. That leaves family members from out of the area, sometimes the state, having to coordinate arrangements from afar.
Angela Loo counts herself among them. Her father, Paradise resident Ernest Foss Jr., was one of the
first people officially identified as a victim of the Camp Fire, news she got at home in Oregon. From afar, she was thrust in the position of having a couple of days to remotely arrange for a mortuary to receive her father after he was released from the Sacramento County coroner’s office, which helped with victim identification because of the sheer volume of fire victims.
“I kind of scrambled to find a mortuary. And there’s a lot more paperwork in California than in Oregon,” Loo said, alluding to her experience with making funeral arrangements after her brother died three years ago.
Loo decided on hiring the Neptune Society to cremate her father, because they performed similar services for her grandmother. And even in doing that, she saw the broad impact of the fire. She ended up getting helped by the company’s Stockton office, she said, because the person who ran the Chico location was busy tending to the loss of her home in the fire.
Foss’ family opted against a formal funeral service, and instead held a quiet remembrance in Red Bluff two weeks ago. Loo said she hopes to have another memorial in San Francisco, where her father was a longtime studio musician, on his birthday in the spring.
“He wanted a big party in Golden Gate Park, which is where he used to jam all the time,” she said.
There’s still a lot of work to be done, she said. Because her father’s formal cause of death is still pending — which will likely be the case for many fire victims — the death certificate isn’t final, and typically can’t be used to file insurance claims and other paperwork.
“It’s going to be a months-long process,” Loo said. “It makes closure difficult because it keeps dragging on. I know the real grief starts when all the work is done and you have time to sit and think and realize what’s happened.”
And even families of victims with pre-existing burial arrangements might have to wait a while before their loved ones’ final wishes can be carried out. Brusie cited two clients who arranged to be buried in Paradise.
“Even when Paradise gets opened up, it will be difficult to get access to services like the cemetery,” Brusie said. “We’ll have to wait to see how that plays out.”
Loo is already preparing to do it all again. Her family was notified that authorities found the remains of her stepbrother, 36-year-old Andrew Burt, Foss’ caretaker who was deemed missing in the wake of the fire. Burt, who
fire survivors said was frantically trying to help Foss escape, was found not far from the Edgewood Lane home he shared with his stepfather.
The minivan Burt was trying to flee in was pointed toward the dead end of Edgewood, away from the only escape route. His family suspects that he might have gotten disoriented by the pitch-black smoke, or that the fire had already cut off his only way out of town.
But Loo notes that even as she has the somber distinction of having a lot of experience with bringing her loved ones to rest, she at least has experience. More than many of the families who are facing or will be faced with the prospect of funerals and burials and cremations in the backdrop of a historic disaster.
She wants some resources and guidance to be provided for people who weren’t displaced but will shoulder many of the tasks and responsibilities that come with losing a loved one in the fire.
“The fundraisers are geared toward survivors and appropriately so. But loved ones of victims who have lost greatly are also going to be struggling,” Loo said. “I hope there’s help out there for them too.”