Camp Fire | Love's Real Stories

Gone

My buddy Ryan texted me: “Hey Doug, long time no talk. Hope you’re doing well. Please say Hi to Coral for me. I need some advice on selling our family’s land north of Chico.”

I love hearing from Ryan, because he’s always excited to talk about anything and everything, and he’s well-informed about lots of things. Coral and I met him fifteen years ago when he sold us a car. He loves to talk about cars. (“Who would guess the combustible engine could evolve into this affordable and quiet car with features of luxury and comfort that make driving a constant pleasure?” he said. “The Industrial Revolution! Amazing!”).

He had an idea to open a pet store. He loves to talk about animals. (“Just think,” he said, “I could help put smiles on the faces of thousands of kids who come get a new pet! And they will learn the responsibility and care it takes to raise a beloved animal friend!”). He became the guy in charge at the local radio station for putting together radio ads. He loves to talk about broadcasting and media markets. (“The reach and the power of the radio only gets stronger and better all the time!”).

His voice is big and fast and excited. He signed me up for a series of radio “spots” advertising our Real Estate company. He voice-recorded those spots for our ads. He toned down his big voice lower and slower and smoothed it out for the airwaves.

“Man,” said one of our Agents, “Who did you pay to voice-over our radio ads? He sounds like the ‘Most Interesting Man in the World!”

Ryan also loves land and buildings and houses, and he loves to talk about Real Estate. (“My Grandfather made all the right moves,” he said. “Brilliant! He kept buying Real Estate and he built half the town up there!”)

I texted back: “Ryan! Way too long! Let me dig into the information about your property and try to figure out your best move. Be well, my friend. Can’t wait to dine with you again.”

The last time I dined with Ryan, as I remembered, was a few months ago. We met for lunch at the Raw Bar sushi restaurant and he signed me up for that Real Estate radio advertising contract. And he told me about his family’s land. “This is the last undeveloped 50 acres my Grandfather left our family. It’s a beautiful piece! But you gotta have the vision! That land has waterways and greenways and needs to be developed the right way!” He was thinking maybe he would try and work on developing it himself.

I called him. “Hey! I said, “maybe we should meet at the Raw Bar, like we did a few months back, and talk about that land of yours.”

“Dude,” he said. “That was not a few months back. That was before the Fire. Like a year and a half ago. Before I moved away.”

Wow. That long ago? Uh-oh. Camp Fire. Moved away? Oh yeah, now I remember, he lived in Paradise.

“Did you lose your house?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said, “Moved out here to the family hometown outside Rochester, New York.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. “when doors close, other doors open! I bought a 2000 square foot home here for $132,000, got a job managing two radio stations. We’re gonna buy land at $2500 an acre, raise animals and grow crops. It’s actually very exciting!”

“Wow,” I said. “Sounds great, but I hate losing good people from our area. The Camp Fire does it again. How long did you live here in the Northstate?”

“Forty years, my man! My whole life.”

“You should come back here and work on the family land you’re talking about selling.”

“Not happening,” he said. “We’re gone.”

“I hate losing good people,” I said.

“We’re not lost,” he said, “but we are gone.”

I hate that.

June 24, 2020

Fire Safe

When the Camp Fire burned through Butte Creek Canyon last November, we lucked out and still have our house. I say we lucked out, because it wasn’t our fire prevention methods that kept our structures intact, it was our on-the-ball neighbors and dedicated firefighters that saved us.

After the fire, we swore we would dedicate ourselves to home fire prevention by creating the defensible space we need to have a better chance of making it through the next fire without relying on neighbors and firefighters. Many of our neighbors who made it through the fire for the same reasons we did, swore the same dedication.

Here we are a year later, and I can’t brag about our fire prevention efforts. I can’t brag about many of my neighbors, either. We do have professional tree trimmers lined up to come out to our place to remove the dangerous branches, trees, and shrubs hanging around our structures, but a lot more needs to be done.

The Butte Fire Safe Council has good advice for me and my neighbors. Please take note of the directions below, and take their advice, or pass it on to those who need it:

Your “defensible space” is the area that is a minimum of 100 feet from your home (as required under State Public Resources Code 4291 and other local ordinances).

This is the area where you need to modify the landscape to allow your house to survive on its own –greatly improving the odds for firefighters defending your home.

If your home is on a slope or subject to high winds, extend the distance of this zone based upon the “X-Factor.” for instance, this zone may increase to 150 feet .

The three R’s of defensible space.

Remove – dead and dying grass, shrubs and trees.

Reduce – the density of vegetation (fuel) and ladder fuels, those fuels extending from the ground to the tree canopies.

Replace – hazardous vegetation with less flammable, irrigated landscape vegetation, including lawn or other low-growing groundcovers and flowering plants.

The Home Ignition Zone (the home plus 10 ft distance)

It’s the ‘little things’ that will endanger your home. Just one little ember landing on one pile of flammable material will start the fire that burns a house down. Spend a morning searching out and getting rid of those flammable little things outside. Your home will be much safer!

1. Keep your rain gutters and roof clean of all flammable material.

2. Get rid of dry grass, brush, and other flammable materials around your home –and don’t forget leaves, pine needles and bark walkways. Replace with well-maintained or watered landscape vegetation, green lawn and landscape rocks.

3. Clear all flammable materials from your deck. This includes brooms, stacked wood, and easily ignitable patio furniture. Also enclose or board up the area under your deck to keep it from becoming a fuel bed for hot embers.

4. Move woodpiles and garbage cans away from your home. Keep woodpiles away from the home, a distance of two times the height of the pile –more if your lot size allows.

5. Use fine mesh metal screen to cover eaves, roof and foundation vents to prevent windblown embers from entering.

6. Inspect and clean your chimney every year. Trim away branches within 10 feet. Install a spark arrester with 1/2″ or smaller mesh screen.

The Butte County Fire Safe Council website has all this advice and much more. Check it out and pass it on!


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May 21, 2020

The Force

There is a new phrase in our Real Estate contracts, “Force Majeure,” meaning an Irresistible Force or Act of God or Uncontrollable Event. “Force Majeure” was added to our contracts to specifically address the Coronavirus Pandemic. A Buyer or Seller may now cancel a contract, if they are negatively impacted by the Coronavirus, such as losing a job, or the inability to move, or they become ill.

We must travel cautiously through this Coronavirus-stricken world.

My wife and I certainly did, as we ventured out to look at a piece of Real Estate. We packed our face masks and rubber gloves, the newly required gear for touring homes. Our mission was to preview a certain property on behalf our friends, Tom and Gahlia, who live in Sonoma County wine country.

Tom and Gahlia, for years now, have been talking about retiring and moving onto country property up here in the Northstate foothills, hence the reason for our preview. The property in question is off Highway 70 past Concow, about a 45-minute drive out of the Valley from Chico. You hang a right onto Big Bend Road and wind out into the hills, catching glimpses now and then of the North Fork of the Feather River a thousand feet below. Somewhere down there is Pulga, the origin of the Camp Fire, 20 miles or more from the town of Paradise, which burned down in the Camp Fire.

We were excited to take a drive, an adventure it seemed, our first of any distance other than to the grocery store since the beginning of the Pandemic. The dogs were excited, too, wagging their tails and smiling in the back of the truck. We pulled into a fast food joint and treated ourselves and the dogs to a meal on the road.

We took the long way and climbed up the Skyway through Paradise to get a look at the progress of the rebuild of that beautiful foothill town. It’s coming along. Houses are going up. But it was Sunday during a Pandemic, so the place was quiet. We talked about the Camp Fire, the lost homes, the destruction of Paradise.

The Camp Fire, like the Coronavirus, is an example of “Force Majeure.” An Irresistible Force. An Uncontrollable Event.

I could see that our twisting and winding drive, uphill, downhill, swerving through the foothills was not agreeing with my wife. She was smiling no more. By the time we pulled off Highway 70 onto Big Bend Road she was writhing and groaning. The fast-food was the culprit. It hit her hard. In the gut.

We pulled off onto a side road marked with a “Road Closed” sign. I’m sorry to say I left my wife at the truck to deal with her sickness, and I took the dogs for a walk along this empty country road. Hey, it was at her request, okay?

The dogs—Dodge, Bear, and Mesa—were in heaven. A clear, gurgling stream ran down below the roadside. Mesa, the floppy young Pyrenees/Lab, slid and rolled down the steep embankment into the water. Dodge, the Pointer, and Bear, the Lab/Pitt, watched skeptically from the road.

We came to a curve in the road where the stream was more easily accessible. The dogs splashed in the water. My wife arrived, feeling better, and we sat beside the stream, surrounded by lush, leafy, fresh growth. Ferns and berries and stands of young trees covered the landscape like a thick blanket, all green and new. Flowers of blue, yellow, orange, and white shone through the underbrush and covered the hillsides. Looming above this lushness were huge, scorched, dead skeletons of trees, the remnants of a destroyed mature forest, recent victims of the Camp Fire. The scorch marks, reaching twenty to thirty feet up the trunks of these lifeless poles, were clear evidence that we now sat in a former inferno of raging, boiling flames of the Camp Fire that had destroyed this entire ravine.

My wife and I and our three dogs rest quietly here beside this stream as our world is struggling with the “Force Majeure” of the Coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, we are observing the signs of another example of “Force Majeure,” the Camp Fire.

As we observe the growth of the fresh new trees, flowers, ferns, and grasses bursting forth on this former burn scar, we realize we are witnessing a rebirth, new life, another example of an Irresistible Force, an Uncontrollable Event, an Act of God. It is the “Force Majeure” of Mother Nature.

By the way, the preview of the property was great. A well-built log home on beautiful acreage, beside another gurgling stream. I hope our dear friends Tom and Gahlia get here in time to buy it. But like I say, they’ve been talking about moving for years.

It may take another example of “Force Majeure.”

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April 19, 2020

Hometown

“So, what about Paradise?” said my friend, Kurt. “With all this Coronavirus stuff going on, I hope people haven’t forgotten about Paradise.” Kurt, born and raised in Paradise, lost his house and business in the Camp Fire. He moved to Arizona, and says he and his family would consider coming back “if there is ever a town of Paradise to come back to.” He likes to say, “If they build it, we will come” and “Let us know when the sap is rising.”

“Forgotten?” I said, “No way. But, poor Paradise, here we go again!”

“Yeah,” he said, “I heard businesses were just getting ready to open and everything. Like maybe the sap was rising after all. And now everything is shut down everywhere. My wife is a germaphobe anyway. Now she wears a hazmat suit 24 hours a day. She won’t go anywhere. I suspect she burns my clothes after I go shopping.”

“Weird times,” I said.

“No kidding,” said Kurt. “I’m afraid to scratch my own nose, and I dream about rolls of toilet paper.”

“Ha!” I said. “I’ve washed my hands more times in the last month than I have my whole life!”

“I do miss my old hometown,” said Kurt. “My eight-year-old son runs around singing, ‘That town will make you crazy, crazy as a loon.’ Cracks me up. I had no idea the kid heard the stuff I play on my speakers out in the garage, much less retained it.” He paused then said, “Little pitchers have big ears.”

“Wait!” I said. “You’re quoting John Prine songs, right?”

“You bet!” he said, “Are you a Prine fan, too?”

“Yep! I love that song your kid is singing, ‘Crazy as a Loon’,” I said.

“I think ‘Paradise’ is my favorite,” said Kurt. “The song is about another town named Paradise, a town in Kentucky where Prine’s family lived, and it got wiped out, too. The difference is Paradise, Kentucky never came back.”

Kurt sang a few lines of John Prine’s ‘Paradise’. He croaked out a pretty good version of that catchy tune and catchy lyrics, including a decent inflection of Prine’s scratchy nasal twang.

Kurt said, “I can’t believe Prine died from the Coronavirus. I’m in mourning.”

“A lotta heartbroken people out there,” I said, “including me. He was a treasure.”

“I read a quote,” said Kurt. “Prine said, ‘If I can make myself laugh about something I should be crying about, that’s pretty good.’”

“Pretty good words for right now,” I said.

He paused, then said, “Anyway, is it Deadsville in Paradise right now?”

“I’m heading up there tomorrow,” I said. “We leased a space for our Paradise Real Estate office right up the road from the one that burned down, and we’re gearing up for helping any way we can in the rebuild of that town.”

The next day, I went up to Paradise from Chico. I hadn’t been there since right after the first of the year.

Paradise is not Deadsville. The main drag, the Skyway, was buzzing with steady traffic, eighty percent trucks. Trucks with trailers, lumber racks, Concrete rigs, flatbeds loaded with building materials stacked high and strapped down. I cruised the side roads and didn’t go far in any direction without seeing new construction. A foundation formed here, a house framed there, a lot graded there. Lumber stacks piled along the roadside, fresh and clean.

I called Kurt from my cell phone. I stood beside the Skyway in front of our new Real Estate office.

“Hey, Kurt,” I yelled into the phone over the traffic noise, “the sap is rising!”

“Well, okay then,” said Kurt. “If they build it, we will come!”

“Hey,” said Kurt, “my wife and I have a new favorite John Prine song, ‘My Darlin’ Hometown.” She cries every time we listen.”

Kurt croaked out a few lines of the song:

“I’m lost and I wish I were found/ In the arms of my darlin’ hometown.”

Pretty good words for right now.

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February 6, 2020

Cowboy

“The explosion blew him 35 feet, all the way across the road!” said my friend Mae. “Can you believe it? 83 years old, and he lived!”

“That is hard to believe,” I said. “Is he still around?”

“Oh yes,” said Mae. “Lost his Paradise home and everything he owned, but Lee’s a tough old cowboy. He was knocked out and lay in the ditch for three and a half hours. The fire burned right over him. They said he was burnt black as coal. The fire burned everything around him while he was knocked out. He lost his house and everything.”

Mae gave me Lee’s phone number, I called and introduced myself. I told him I wanted to hear his story.

“It’s not much of a story,” he said. “I was knocked out cold through the whole thing, and all I have to show for it is one shoe and one dog.”

“I heard you were blown 35 feet,” I said. “That sounds like a story to me!”

“More like 40 feet,” said Lee. “I think I damaged the driveway when I hit it with my head. But I’m a tough old cowboy, we take it as it comes. I’m just a little bit older than the hills, but I can still ride bulls. My wife doesn’t think so. She’s a beautiful lady, but even ornerier than me. Tougher, too. She fell and broke her hip and her arm after the fire. So, I’m not getting much good work out of her lately. Don’t tell her I said that. She’s wilder than all get out. She’s over 90 years old and more beautiful than ever. We love to dance. She fell when we moved into this fifth wheel. I worked a whole lotta years to become homeless. We might build again on our lot in Paradise but I’m hard to work with. I’m a contractor. When I say plumb, level, and square, I mean it.”

I asked Lee about the day of the fire.

“The fire came later in the day to my place on Deer Creek Lane. My granddaughter had already come by and hauled off my wife, when I decided I better get moving. I’ve been a logger and a cowboy, and I’ve fought fires. I figured I knew what to do. I watered the place down and I was loading my four dogs into the pickup. But that fire was too fast. The propane tank blew and sent me flying. Knocked out in the ditch while the fire burned right over me. I never did find my other shoe….”

Lee paused there. When he continued, he choked up. “Three of my dogs didn’t make it, Doug,” he said. “My special dog Lacey, the Border Collie with the white ruff, she had her legs wrapped around me. I always load her into the pickup because she’s overweight.”

Now Lee is talking through his tearful sobs.

“I’ve never had a dog so close,” he said. “She clung to me. We were in this world to help each other, comfort each other! I love all animals, Doug. I’ve worked with livestock my whole life, but it’s not just numbers! I loved every horse, cow, pig, dog, and animal I’ve ever seen.”

Through his pain, Lee told me that Lacey perished in the fire along with Princess, the other Border Collie, and Lucky, the Black Lab. Bambi, the Lab/Pit Bull, survived, curled up on the floorboards in the cab of the pickup, having stayed there as the entire area was consumed by the howling fire.

“I woke up to a red blizzard of fire and smoke. I was dazed and stupid. I hauled myself in a half-crawl back across the road to my charred pickup, the only thing left of the world I knew before that tank blew.”

Lee jumped in the pickup, it started up and he drove himself and Bambi out of Paradise.

“I was pretty beat up,” said Lee. “The worst is a bunch of 3/8 inch holes burnt into me from the embers, but they gradually fill up.

“Like I said, I’m a hard-headed old cowboy. We take it as it comes.”

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