Local: How one community rebuilt after devastating wildfire.
With help and support from Glen Ellen residents, farmers affected by blaze were given hope
PACIFIC GROVE >> Almost a year and a half ago on the night of Oct. 8, 2017, Melissa Lely and her husband, Austin, were woken up in a panic by their neighbors. There was a fire coming, and they needed to evacuate. They jumped into their car and drove to their farm just in time to see the massive wildfire roaring over the ridgeline.
“Our lives were about to be flipped upside down,” she recalls in front of a crowd of people at the EcoFarm Conference last month. “We grabbed my laptop, our dog, and our wedding rings and left when we still could.”
The Lely’s own and operate Bee-Well Farms — a 100-acre farm with cattle, chickens and vegetables up in the rolling hills of Glen Ellen. Founded in 2015, the farm has since grown significantly and now has over 400 chickens roaming the property and plenty of customers.
But the fire on that October night brought their growth — and that of many other farms in Sonoma County — to a grinding halt. Countless acres filled with crops ready for harvesting were burned. Homes and barns were destroyed. Many farm animals perished.
In the face of such destruction, outlooks for many farmers looked bleak. But thanks to the help of a supportive community that cared about the survival of their local farms and vineyards, places like Bee-Well Farms are still operating today.
“The big thing that helped us were the relationships that we made in the community,” Lely said. “The entire community came together to raise money to get farms back on their feet — and I’m very thankful for them.”
Dubbed the Nuns Fire, the
inferno that destroyed the Lely’s house, barn and water lines was one in a large series of wildfires that blazed across the Wine Country in 2017. After 23 days with up to 70 mph winds, the Nuns Fire burned almost 57,000 acres and approximately 1,000 residential and commercial buildings.
David Cooper, a farm manager from Oak Hill Farm just 3 miles south of Bee-Well Farms, also suffered major damages. Spanning across 25 acres of farmland, Oak Hill Farm grows sustainable fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs.
The fire burned away Cooper’s home, leaving only the brick chimney standing, and all of the trees were covered in thick, black ash. However, many of his crops — including tomatoes, cauliflower and romanesco broccoli — survived, and Cooper was determined to harvest them.
“There was work to be done, we didn’t feel good just sitting at a friend’s house waiting for things to happen,” he said.
With the help of his neighbors, Cooper was able to get back onto his farm and harvest many of his
crops before they burned or wilted, including 900 pounds of romanesco broccoli.
Tim Page, the founder of Farmer’s Exchange of Earthly Delights Sonoma, or FEED Sonoma, played a key role in transporting crops off of the farms and into the public’s hands.
Tucked off of Route 116 in Petaluma, FEED Sonoma is a for-profit business that buys products from 50 small farms in Sonoma County and transports them to local buyers, including restaurants, grocery stores, schools and caterers.
Luckily, Page was not directly affected by the fire. But, when the fire happened, “a call went out,”
said Page. “We worked with a community of chefs in San Francisco that collaborated on creating emergency food systems.” This system allowed FEED Sonoma to deliver roughly 50,000 meals to first responders, community members and people in the evacuation centers.
“During a crisis, we were all simply asked to do what we do, but do more of it and do it better,” he said.
Evan Wiig, the executive director of The Farmer’s Guild, shares a similar sentiment. Wiig also led the discussion on wildfires and farms at the EcoFarm Conference, where farmers gathered to learn about ecologically sustainable agriculture practices.
Amidst all of the fire and inescapable smoke, The Farmer’s Guild, which supports local agriculture across Northern California, was able to transport tons of crops off of the farms and pay the farmers the money they needed.
“It was from continued generosity of the farmers that this was able to work,” said Wiig. The Farmer’s Guild was only able to start paying the farmers, “after about a week and a half of them donating produce over and over and over again.”
With changing weather patterns, longer droughts and an increased number of wildfires, the future of California farming is under threat.
Farmers such as Lely and Cooper never thought that they would be the victims of a wildfire disaster, leaving them completely unprepared when the Nun Fire hit them.
This is one of the many reasons they felt incredibly lucky that they had a community to lean on.
With the help of their neighbors, Lely and her husband were able to raise over $10,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to help rebuild what was lost. This month, Cooper finished building a new farm workshop after the old one was destroyed in the fire.
“We’re getting rain, the hills are recovering,” said Cooper, “so there is hope. But it’s a slow process. Slower than we ever would expect.”
Moving forward, farm advocates such as Wiig want to continue to encourage, inspire and celebrate the resilience of local farms.
Through social media, community-supported agriculture, and local farmers markets, invisible bonds between farmers and their surrounding communities can be both formed and strengthened.
“Networks in communities are vital for farming,” said Wiig. “Those connections that we built through The Farmer’s Guild and local food distribution meant life or death — it determined if your farm could rebound from the fire.”
“Our lives were about to be flipped upside down. We grabbed my laptop, our dog, and our wedding rings and left when we still could.”
— Melissa Lely, owner of BeeWell Farms