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