It has almost been a year since the historic October firestorm swept through much of Sonoma County and after the dust settled and the smoke cleared, those impacted by the fire shared a common threads sewn through each of their startling experience.
Of the four people in different areas of Sonoma County interviewed for this one-year anniversary story, all voiced they weren’t initially aware of the explosiveness and seriousness of the wildfires and two mentioned the issue of emergency alerts — some didn’t receive alerts due to not being signed up for the Nixle app or for the simple reason of having a landline.
However, perhaps the strongest common thread throughout this shared quilt of stories, is that disaster created resilience and hope for each survivor.
These are the stories of four people impacted by the fires in both similar, and different ways.
A growing threat
Jeremy Decker, Cloverdale Unified School District superintendent, lost his home in Mark West Springs on what was supposed to be a normal Sunday night prepping for work the next morning.
“I had a two-year-old daughter, I put her to bed and had some work to do at 10:30 p.m. My wife was getting ready for bed, I was working and it smelled like smoke and my aunt sent me a Nixle text saying there was fire on Riebli Road,” Decker said, adding that he didn’t think much of it at the time.
Despite apprehension, Decker and his wife packed their car with their daughter, a set of work clothes and got their animals accounted for.
Decker says he initially didn’t see any fire, but later saw a fire truck speed up their street.
“I thought, ‘that is not good.’ I turned and looked out towards Calistoga and saw a blood red sky and at that point, I knew we had to go, so we grabbed a few mementos and left,” Decker said.
Kathryn Hill, Director of Special Education at Windsor Unified School District, says she too didn’t think much of the fire and thought she would get to return to her Fountaingrove home.
Hill didn’t even learn of the fire until around 2 in the morning when she received a frantic call from her neighbor, waking her and her husband up.
“We ignored the first call and then our neighbor called again and told us we had to evacuate. We got up and noticed outrageous winds and smoke, but we didn’t see any fire. We both completely thought we’d be back, so we only took a change of clothes, dog food and that’s it,” Hill explained. “I just didn’t think we’d lose our home … I almost felt drugged.”
Hill evacuated to her daughter’s house near Santa Rosa, but soon after that, her daughter’s neighborhood was evacuated too. The families agreed to meet up a safe distance away in a parking lot and were later able to return to their daughter’s home where they watched news coverage all night and saw live footage of their home burning to the ground.
Cathleen Stafford, now a Healdsburg resident, lost her home in Riebli Valley. She was working later than normal, catching up on emails when the power went out.
Stafford looked out from one of her picture windows and saw an orange glow emanate from the ridge. Her and her husband watched the glow grow bigger and when it came over the ridge they called 911; nobody answered.
Despite not hearing evacuation orders, Stafford decided to wake up her neighbors to notify them of the growing fire; however, she said she too was not aware of the seriousness of the fire and didn’t think her house would be reduced to rubble, save for the home’s brick entryway.
“We had a new fire station near our home and a fire hydrant in front of our house,” Stafford said.
Stafford and her family met at a Hilton in Petaluma for a respite after evacuating her mother in Oakmont and they watched the disaster unfold in a hotel room.
“We were both in denial. It is hard to wrap your brain around the fact that your house is going to burn down to the ground,” Stafford said.
But surprise and shock weren’t only limited to homeowners. Chief of the Sebastopol Fire Department, Bill Braga, says in his 35-year long career in fire safety, he had never seen a fire of that magnitude.
The long period of work for Sebastopol firefighters started around 9:30 p.m. when they received a call from dispatch to send an engine to Santa Rosa to help with a structure fire that Braga called, “A pretty typical call.”
“We didn’t realize that Sunday night was just the beginning of the firestorm,” Braga said. “Around 11 p.m. we got a second request to send a truck and then I learned they were multiple fires and we got a third request for a truck, which was unheard of.”
By the time the fire was raging, Sebastopol fire had three engines and 22 personnel out on the fire line.
“The first three stayed on the fire line for three to four days before I could rotate them out. It was a total of 13 days and 1,700 hours worked for the firefighters, which is unprecedented,” Braga said.
Emergency Alerts
Yet another common thread among two of the interviewees, Decker and Stafford, was the difficulty of being notified of the emergency.
Decker, who wasn’t signed up to receive Nixle alerts, only learned of the fire due to a text from his aunt, who was signed up for the alert system and received the notification. Decker says he is now more aware of emergency preparedness and is signed up to receive alerts.
Stafford, who had a landline and a mobile phone, said she didn’t receive notification of the disaster.
“We never received any phone calls or text messages,” Stafford said.
Months after the fires and after numerous questions from city council members and county supervisors on how to better notify residents, the county tested their SoCo Emergency Alert system Sept. 12. The test sent out wireless notifications to phones, mobile devices, TV and radio.
Sonoma County will decide later this year whether to go forward using Everbridge/Nixle services or to make the transition to the SoCo alert system, which can cover the entire county, be sent to landlines in a reverse 911 call and and doesn’t require residents or visitors to sign up in order to receive alerts.
Different stories
Yet, not everyone’s story is the same, not all threads are equal.
Decker says a major part of his night that October was trying to find their beloved family cat, which used to be a stray and was easily spooked. A few days after the fire he went back to look for his cat, which was then when he saw that “the house was completely gone with only some bits of pottery left.”
He feared the worst for his cat and it was a crushing disappointment when he found what he thought to be was his cat at a local shelter. He later had to return it when he realized it was a different cat. Decker continued searching and eventually heard his cat meowing from the shed of his neighbor’s destroyed house in what he described as “One of the happier moments” of the experience.
For Hill, she said the nightmarish feeling of that evening wasn’t just limited to that night, but still lingers as she and her husband are going through the arduous process of rebuilding their home.
“I can’t believe it has been this hard, we still don’t even have a quote (for the rebuild). FEMA cleared our lot, but that’s it so far, it is a true nightmare,” Hill said.
Stafford, who is a family counselor, says the unique thing she noticed about that night and the days and weeks after, was that not many people want to talk about it. She said the past 12 months sometimes felt lonely, which is why moments when she can share her story are cathartic.
And as for Braga, as a fire chief, the most frustrating part of the whole firestorm, was not being able to save homes and put out the fire.
“We couldn’t stop the hundreds and thousands of homes from burning, and our job is to save people and homes and we were not able to do that. It was hard for us and difficult to swallow,” Braga said.
Hope
Despite loss and the struggle to cope with one of the largest fire disasters the state has seen, both Decker, Stafford, Hill and Braga carry a strong sense of positivity.
After Decker’s lot was cleared he had a photographer shoot photos on the barren property where they plan to rebuild. Despite the forbidding landscape, the Deckers evoke a sense of togetherness and positivity. In the photo their daughter is dressed in a blue denim dress, giggling in her dad’s arms as mom looks on with a smile as the sun sinks behind the site of their future home.
“We are just going to power through this,” Decker said of the rebuilding process.
For Hill and Braga, their silver linings are in knowing they were able to learn valuable lessons from that night.
Hill said she’s now aware of how important it is to take the time to review insurance policies and plans.
Braga said the fire department has become more aware of fire fuel conditions, red flag warnings and land topography, all nuggets of information they now use on a daily basis when dealing with fire season.
Braga said it has also, “Opened our eyes to focus on more vegetation management and the use of fire resistant building materials.”
And as for Stafford, loss has given her the opportunity to become a part of a new community in Healdsburg, which she says she loves, especially the taqueria across the street from Oakville Grocery. Her new home has also given her a chance to open her own practice.
“I am definitely trying to make this disaster we were a part of … to make something positive out of it,” Stafford said. “I wanted to show my kids that in life after tragedy you have to land on your feet. You can either lie on the floor and curl up in a ball and be a victim, or be a survivor.”
