Camp Fire Story
Faced with the possibility of losing everything in a fire, I mourned, hoped, and felt guilty about my attachments to my stuff
By Jackie Powers
Editor: Karrie Witkin | Designer: Haley Burson | Illustrator: Rabbit Person Illustration | Creative Director: Amanda McCarty | Copyeditor: Katie Frankowicz | Communication/Support: Meg Chellew
On Nov. 8, 2018, I woke up in Paradise, Calif., cranky about something. I couldn’t tell you what about exactly now; it was something trivial that irritated me the day before, something I was mad at myself for getting mad over, something that had me — at 6:30 am — not feeling like my best self and therefore not wanting to spend much effort picking out an outfit or doing my makeup before I set off down the ridge to work. I do remember what I wore: old, red American Eagle pants; a pullover sweatshirt featuring the NASA logo; a T-shirt; slip-on mules from Target; and a gold necklace with a tiny crescent moon charm from a local jewelry maker. I had a backpack with my spare glasses and case and my purse with the usual necessities. I remember these details, because by 10 o’clock that morning they were about all the earthly possessions I thought I had left.
The Camp Fire made headlines nationwide that day and in the days to follow as the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. But as I was driving to work in the north end of Chico, I didn’t think much of the plume of smoke rising in the east. Calfire’s website claimed that the Camp Fire was burning some miles further southeast in the little community of Pulga. This wasn’t my first experience with wildfire. In late July, the Carr Fire threatened the city of Redding, burning into the west side of town not far from where I lived with my boyfriend at the time. We evacuated to Chico, about 70 miles south (where I had also been commuting to work five days a week), but the fire never made it close to our neighborhood. During evacuation, I stayed a week with my former roommate and remembered how nice it was to not drive three hours each day to commute. My boyfriend and I agreed that it would be best if I moved back to Chico. By mid-October, I rented my first very own apartment — a place that had only a year before been renovated from an old motel — just outside the tiny town of Paradise.
When it became apparent the Camp Fire was spreading toward town, I thought I had time to drive back and pack up whatever I could, like I’d done three months prior. Traffic was backed up on State Route 99 and through the south end of Chico, which led to the only main road in and out of Paradise. By the time I got to that intersection, authorities had blocked off traffic going back into town so residents could be evacuated. The sky, so beautiful when I left that morning, was filled with rusty, bruised smoke and quickly blackening. Realizing there was nothing I could do, I pulled over to the nearest parking lot and cried.
I was so extraordinarily lucky that day. Even if my apartment burned, even if I lost all my possessions, I had left town for Chico well before the chaos of evacuations began. My pet snake was safe in Redding with my boyfriend as I’d yet to transition her to the new apartment. My loved ones were far away and safe. When I speak of my personal experiences and my luck throughout this event, I by no means wish to trivialize the trauma, loss, and hardships so many other victims and survivors edured. I can’t even call myself a victim. Sometimes, I wonder why on earth I got so lucky. Mostly, I just feel rather guilty for such luck, and that guilt prevents me from wanting to talk about this time in my life.
“I found myself hating everything in the stores because I only wanted what I had left in my apartment.”
So, this will be the first time I will confess that when I think back on my personal experiences with the Camp (and Carr) Fire, so many of those memories are tied up in stuff.
Since the experience, I’ve thought a lot about how possessions represent our lives. They tell the story of us as individuals; our history in our heirlooms and things we’ve kept since childhood, our interests and hobbies, our aesthetic expression, our inner and outward personalities, and our family and friends. I’ve always been sensitive and sentimental, so maybe there are those who don’t feel this way about things. This would be like speaking an alien language to me. When I cried that day, I wasn’t crying for the ice tray from Target or Dollar Store knives I’d just gotten for my apartment, or even my laptop (which I pictured on the floor by my bed next to half-finished tea). I cried for the binders and journals of writing and art kept since childhood, for a picture of my dad when he was 8, for the Simpsons blanket I took with with me to pre-school that still had my name Sharpied on the tag, for the vintage clothes I was so proud of, for the Japanese dolls I bought with all my birthday money at age 13, and for a tapestry I’d just hung that made the apartment feel like more like home.
The only way to cope with that feeling was to remind myself that these possessions were ultimately just things, and that I was alive. I had to carry on as best I could.
This is what I told myself any time I started to remember any object I missed in the two weeks after the fire. I tried to reassure myself that anything I had ever created came from my own head, so I could always create more. Anything I had ever bought came from the income of having a steady job, which I still had, so I was incredibly fortunate. I told myself this while shopping for things I needed, but I had a hard time listening. I found myself hating everything in the stores because I only wanted what I had left in my apartment. I felt horrible that I was in Target shopping for anything at all, or even glancing at an unnecessary scarf, and reminding myself that I actually did need socks and underwear.
The worst instance of this happened at a Sephora in Redding the day after the fire. I went in thinking it might help me cope and keep my mind off things if I just bought a few so-called essentials (mascara, eyeliner.) Paralyzed with guilt over buying anything that wasn’t utilitarian, I spent an hour circling around the store considering products and avoiding looking at ones that I owned, but that had certainly burned. A few associates came up to me and asked if I needed any help. Finally, I told one woman that I had been affected by the fire. I recall her expression changing from a sales associate smile to genuine concern and sympathy. She offered to buy my makeup, not just the mascara and eyeliner I planned, but a selection of products that totaled over a hundred dollars even with her discount. I kept asking if it was okay and she kept insisting, and by the end, I think I actually did cry when I gave her a thank-you hug.
That makeup became a great source of comfort over the next couple weeks. It gave me something to do and a way to distract myself, which helped me feel a little bit better. During those two weeks the fire still burned. Evacuation orders remained in place. Rain didn’t fall until Thanksgiving. I heard no final word from my landlord about what became of my apartment. My coworker had been living with her parents in Paradise and they knew within days that their home was gone. At the time I envied her. Not knowing felt like being in limbo; it was a state of paralysis where I didn’t have the information I needed to move forward with my life.
A leaked police video from Nov. 8 showed footage from a car driving quickly down the road past my apartment. For a split second I noticed the redwood trees out front of our building were not on fire despite the flames surrounding them. This was all I had to speculate on for several days. Then, finally, I received an uncertain text from the property manager which only said that “maybe” the apartment hadn’t suffered much damage. That maybe everything was fine.
The chance that maybe my place hadn’t burned down gave me hope. I was also aware that disappointing news would open the wound of loss all over again. I did my best to keep it at bay. I did my best to continue to remind myself that things were just things.
An incident map was being updated, address by address, of any structure with damage. I checked that map every day, probably multiple times a day. After two weeks, the reporting finally made it to my building. Our two neighbors — a collectable card shop and an abandoned storage building — were both burned heavily. My apartment, indicated in “yellow,” had just one picture. All that it showed was the apartment sign charred and toppled, a broken window, and a few singed beams on the opposite end of the building from my unit.
This one photo most likely indicated that this was the only damage to report on this structure. It meant that my side of the building might have been spared after all. I welcomed hope then. I allowed myself to remember the things I missed without berating myself for it; there was the chance that I could be reunited with it all again! This felt like an impossible miracle, given that the card shop not 20 feet away from my kitchen window was unrecognizable. And yet, I couldn’t help but hope! I couldn’t wait for the comfort of all that was familiar to me; to touch and appreciate any item I had ever taken for granted. I couldn’t wait for a semblance of normalcy again. Even if there was damage, even if there was just a little something from my life before the fire, well, that was better than nothing at all.
“The chance that maybe my place hadn’t burned down gave me hope. I was also aware that disappointing news would open the wound of loss all over again.”
With the evacuation orders still in effect, wait (and worry) was all I could do for the next 40 days. It wasn’t until mid-December that I received notification that orders had been lifted and we were allowed back. On the day we made the drive up the ridge, I remember still feeling nervous of what awaited me there. When I opened my apartment door, and saw the place left exactly as I had the morning of the fire, I experienced a new set of strange, conflicting emotions. First, overwhelming relief. There was no noticeable damage — no smoke damage, no broken windows, nothing except a refrigerator full of spoiled food and some ash on the floor. Every last object I owned was unharmed, and I mentally promised each one I would never take it for granted again.
At the same time, however, a new guilt replaced the old guilt of missing my material possessions. How could I have been so lucky? I am not one to believe in a higher power, and I rationalized possible logical explanations, such as that maybe my apartment, built only a year prior, had higher fire safety standards than the older buildings surrounding it. Yet each moment that led to such luck (good and bad) was dependent on the chance of circumstance, from leaving Paradise for work well before the fire blazed through town to choosing to move to this apartment in the first place. Initially, I was excited to tell those closest to me of my good fortune, and they were happy for me. But quickly, I started to feel strange continuing to talk about my experiences with the Camp Fire, especially since in our small community everyone knew someone who had lost everything. My story felt privileged and irrelevant next to so much loss. Two and a half years later, I still grapple with this guilt.
Last came the feeling of needing to move forward, but still not quite knowing how. I had decisions to make about whether or not I would move back to this apartment when we were allowed. No one had an estimate for when that would be. In the meantime, I had to leave most of my items there while I lived temporarily with my coworker in a town 40 minutes away. I felt split between places, and despite having shelter, I didn’t have a home. Everything was fine, but it would still be a while before life would stable again, and I would begin to heal. I'll dive into that process in my upcoming post, "After the Campfire."
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