A year after the Creek Fire, survivors gather to support and celebrate ‘baby steps’ forward
“Progress” and “baby steps” were among the descriptions used by Creek Fire survivors on Saturday to describe the year that followed the destruction of their mountain homes in eastern Fresno County.
They wrote them on small wooden rounds hanging from keys – gifts from Creek Fire Recovery Collaborative volunteers hosting a One Year Stronger event at the Shaver Lake Community Center baseball field.
The keys don’t open any physical doors, but “it’s your new key to your new life,” Cris Loyd, a Trauma Intervention Program volunteer, told Creek Fire survivors.
“Sometimes you just need some symbol,” Loyd said.
The blaze that ignited Sept. 4, 2020, destroyed more than 850 structures, most of them homes, and quickly became one of the largest wildfires in California’s history.
Saturday’s event with vendors, music, food and speakers was a fundraiser to help those survivors.
The new keys for those who lost homes in the Creek Fire were gifted after survivors were asked to toss old house keys into a bowl within a burnt tree stump at the event to “close the door to the past.”
Ongoing wildfires throughout California haven’t made that any easier, including the Blue Fire that threatened the Shaver Lake area just six months after the Creek Fire was fully contained.
“All the smoke from the other fires is bringing back memories for everybody,” said Trauma Intervention Program volunteer Sherri Fosse, who was evacuated from her Tollhouse home last year as the Creek Fire grew.
“It’s been a rough year,” Creek Fire Recovery Collaborative Treasurer Tanner Michaelson said, “and so we’re trying to have this day to kind of inspire them and hopefully create a sense of hope for those families, because the journey is not over.
“They still have a long way to go.”
Creek Fire survivors rebuilding lives
Joe Armas wrote “baby steps” on the key chain attached to his symbolic new-life key.
The 33-year-old is among 15 firefighters with the Pine Ridge Volunteer Fire Department who lost homes in the Creek Fire. Armas said Saturday that he just received a permit to rebuild his house.
“It’s been a long road, that’s why I got my ‘baby steps,’” Armas said, referring to the words on his new key chain.
He moved to the area from the Central Coast just a few months before the Creek Fire started. He’s been living in a trailer on his burnt property since November, cutting down dead trees and planting a couple hundred new ones. It’s been “bittersweet,” but the Creek Fire isn’t killing his dream of mountain living.
“It’s still such a great community, with the town of Shaver Lake getting spared,” Armas said. “If the whole town of Shaver’s gone, that might have changed my outlook on things, or the ski resort even. ... The community is definitely what kept me up here ... and there’s still a lot of good forest.”
There’s been tears, but Armas is keeping a positive mindset. He thinks of what happened as “character building.”
“We’re all here, we’re all alive,” Armas said. “A house and things are just things, you know, that’s it.”
Still, losing things has been hard, too.
Jeana Morris recalled her granddaughter’s heartbreak learning her Barbie dream house was destroyed when Morris’ Alder Springs home burned down.
Morris bought a new home nearby, across from Meadow Lakes. Like Armas, she still loves the mountains and community. She said there’s “nowhere else to live for me.”
Morris will likely sell her old property. She said the price of lumber is too high to rebuild. She received government-sponsored cleanup assistance, but not for everything. She had to dismantle a cinder block retaining wall herself.
Caryl Clayton, 84, was among the Creek Fire survivors at the One Year Stronger event. She’s been living with family in Hanford since her home on Cressman Road burned down.
“It’s good to be back,” Clayton said Saturday.
Her husband, Glenn, died earlier this year.
“This was his dream, to be up here,” Clayton said.
The Claytons’ daughter, Lynda Cuzzort, said she promised her father on his deathbed that she’d continue the family’s work to rebuild their home in eastern Fresno County.
“It’s our legacy,” Cuzzort said of the family property on Cressman Road. “We’ve had seven acres up there for 30-plus years. ... It’s always been that our family would always be there.”
Cleanup update from Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig
Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig said he was aware of about 17 building permits having been pulled, as of a couple weeks ago, by those who lost homes in the Creek Fire, and that some are close to finishing construction.
Magsig said Creek Fire cleanup work on private lands was completed in July for those who signed up for a program through the state.
A few may still be waiting on soil testing results, he said, “but by and large, most homes have been cleared, and they’re ready for plans to be turned into the county and permits to be issued, so that’s very encouraging.”
“The state, working with our county office of emergency services, recognized just the severe devastation and other challenges that we would have if we didn’t get these properties cleaned up. A lot of this debris and material would end up in our waterways, and so there was a real threat to our watersheds that were impacted by this fire.”
Utility companies removed a lot of the hazardous trees around properties, Magsig said, but the state also removed some.
He said his heart breaks for those trying to rebuild on U.S. Forest Service land, who were “unfortunately not allowed to participate in that state-funded program.” His office continues to work with those people.
Magsig said a lot of other families chose to clean up their properties using their insurance. The county needs a clearance certificate showing soil samples aren’t contaminated in order to issue a building permit, he said.
Volunteer groups helping those hit by wildfire
The Creek Fire Recovery Collaborative connects people with numerous organizations and services that can help them post-Creek Fire. United Way Fresno and Madera Counties is a fiscal partner of the collaborative.
The collaborative hosted the One Year Stronger event from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. A commemorative bench was also dedicated at the baseball field.
The collaborative’s chairperson, Ari Arroyo, is a volunteer firefighter with the Pine Ridge Volunteer Fire Department, and its treasurer, Michaelson, is a case manager with Catholic Charities Diocese of Fresno. He works with Creek Fire survivors at Catholic Charities and puts in extra hours after work as treasurer for the collaborative.
“If anyone needs anything, please give us a call, we’re here to help,” Michaelson said. “A lot of people are hesitant to call us because they don’t want help, or they don’t want charity. This is not charity. Even if it’s just a question, like, ‘I don’t know who to call to get my building inspected or a permit.’ We don’t mind. We want to help out every single person, whether it’s building you a house from the ground-up, or answering a small question.”
He said for some Creek Fire survivors, the process of rebuilding their lives post-wildfire hasn’t even started because the emotional trauma has been so severe.
“They’re in a rental somewhere, they’re staying at their friend’s place,” Michaelson said. “They don’t know who to go to. They don’t know who to call. So that’s why we’re here today to make sure that they know that the community is here to support them and that we’re going to be here until whatever they need is solved. We’re not going anywhere. We’re not just going to let these people get left behind.”
Saturday’s celebration continued from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. with a Rock to Rebuild fundraiser concert, along with food and beer, hosted by Rebuild Our Sierra, a committee of the Shaver Lake Visitors Bureau.
Rebuild Our Sierra has given over $25,000 to Creek Fire survivors in the most need, including those without insurance; awarded a tiny home to a disabled veteran who was homeless after the fire; and started a logs-to-lumber program to mill dead wood.
Kyle Lee, president of the Shaver Lake Visitors Bureau and co-chair of Rebuild Our Sierra, said Saturday’s fundraiser concert was meant to be a “celebration of the growth from the fire, and how we’ve recovered from the tragedy that we’ve faced.”
Politicians thank Shaver Lake for ‘always lifting others up’
The event began with a few guest speakers, including Supervisor Magsig.
“Even through all of this, we will rebuild,” Magsig said, referring to the pain of what was lost in the Creek Fire, “and there will be new memories to be enjoyed with families up here in our mountain communities.”
Magsig said there are “many unsung heroes” working to make that happen, including a Shaver Lake church that’s drilled over 80 wells for Creek Fire survivors.
“If there’s one good thing that can be described that has come from the Creek Fire,” Magsig said, “I believe that we are closer because of it.”
Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims thanked law enforcement who responded to the Creek Fire and said, “Shaver Lake, you are just epitomizing what it means to pull together and be a community, and you’re truly Mountain Strong.”
Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, told the crowd they are an inspiration for “always lifting others up.”
“I can’t think of a better explanation of what you are doing here together in a time of hurt, in a time of rebuilding, and in a time of working together,” Patterson said. “You are always lifting others up.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2021 at 9:14 PM.
