After losing their home to a fire, they found refuge in a small California town. Then a fire ravaged it

A community of less than 1,000 people in the Indian Valley of California, Greenville was such an idyllic mountain town that it was the place where people wanted to rebuild their lives.

This is what Joan Carter and her husband, Dan, hoped to do after their Berry Creek home, about 70 miles away, burned down in Bear Bear last year.

“We fell in love with the people of Greenville,” Carter said. “It was a community for us more than a place.”

They had just laid the groundwork for their new home in early summer, when the Dixie fire broke out, leaving little but charred remains behind. A little over a week ago, authorities announced a mandatory evacuation order had been lifted and residents could return to the area unescorted for the first time since the flame.

Attracted by the strong sense of community, the Carters and others who lost everything, even for the second time, are ready to rebuild themselves again and help the community recover.

Joan Carter with her husband, Dan.

“We just ran”

Back in Berry Creek, Joan Carter had persuaded her husband to buy a trailer after seeing the nearby city of Paradise disappear amid the flames of Camp Fire.

The trailer was the one they used to escape the bear’s fire, taking several pre-packaged “fire boxes”, full of family photographs and memories of more than 70 years of his life, which Carter kept at the door of his house.

They found nothing but ashes again.

“I had no idea I wouldn’t leave,” he said. “The kind of fires we’re experiencing now are megafocs.”

The Carters' Berry Creek home before and after the Bear Fire.

Still regretting the loss of their home and several neighbors, and after a long and hard process of navigating the insurance, they sold the property and soon began rebuilding in Greenville.

But in early August, the Dixie fire set fire to much of the city. The flames, on their way to becoming the largest fire in California history, began in July and have since burned more than 959,000 acres in Butte, Tehama, Plumas, Shasta and Lassen counties, according to officials. of firefighters. It has approximately 62% content.
The Carters live in their trailer in Quincy and their daughter created a GoFundMe to help them cover expenses, including living in camper parks and wintering the vehicle as the colder weather approaches, until they can return to their Greenville property.

“When that happened again, we just said we just ran,” Carter said. “It’s a small place. We know each other and we suffer together and we will succeed together.”

Based on his previous experience, Carter said the community’s journey toward recovery will not be easy, especially for Greenville residents who are facing the loss of a fire for the first time. But she hopes she and her husband can help her friends navigate what’s to come and the emotions that come.

“You have to cry and go through all the steps of mourning. At first, you’re just paralyzed, it’s overwhelming and you don’t know where to start and that’s what Dan and I hope we can contribute to these people in Dixie. Fire,” he said. she said. “There is anger because especially in a fire like this, the Dixie fire or the fire (camp), it was caused by negligence of a human being.”

Cal Fire officials said in 2019 that California-based power company Pacific Gas & Electric was responsible for Camp Fire, noting that power lines owned and operated by the company started the fire amid extremely harsh conditions. dry and windy. The company has pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting a fire. Nearly two months ago, PG&E said the Dixie Fire could have been caused by the teams it manages.

“Our faith makes us come,” Carter said. “In the Bible, God says, ‘I will give you beauty for ashes.’ And heaven only knows that we have many ashes.”

The foundations of the Carters' house in Greenville after the fire.

“I don’t want to avoid the hard and the ugly”

Greg Walsh was also new to Greenville. He moved to the small community after the wildfire destroyed his 40s two-bedroom bungalow in paradise.

Like the Carters, Walsh had moved to his home in Paradise to retire, looking for a quiet place to live and surrounded by nature. He lost his home and two friends at Camp Fire.

Survivors of California’s deadliest fire are now helping other survivors pick up the pieces

After practicing on the couch for several months before buying an RV, he settled in the Wolf Creek area of ​​Greenville in May 2019.

“I immediately felt right at home here,” he said. “I thought it was such a healing place.”

He soon bought a house – a century-old structure he had just furnished this summer. He said what he loved most was the people he knew.

“There are ranchers who have been there for generations, Indians (artists), artists, Burning Man people, people who appeared in the 70s … really a mix,” he said. “Not only is the house lost, but the whole community.”

Greg Walsh

While visiting the family, when Camp Fire swept through paradise, he heard so many stories and saw so many clips of what it was like to evacuate the city, that when the Dixie fire approached Greenville, Walsh said he started having it. ” visions “. from the previous evacuation and fled quickly as the flames approached.

After the second house burned down, he decided he would come back and start again. With the help of a local business that has been working to help fire survivors, E & J’s Mobile Kitchen, Walsh connected with a California resident who gave him an RV after his previous one was charred.

In a few months he plans to leave it on the property where he will begin rebuilding his home. Meanwhile, he says he wants to continue working with the mobile kitchen to help other fire survivors. And when he returns to Greenville, he says he wants to do his part and help his community heal.

“I have the resources, I could go back to a beautiful place, but any place where I live, if it hasn’t been burned yet, will be, sooner or later,” he said. “I want to go back to Greenville and help the community because I don’t want to avoid the hard and ugly of life.”

.Source