Mill Fire recovery dragging on for many survivors in Weed and Lake Shastina

Recovery has been slow for survivors of the Mill Fire, which took two lives and injured three others when it burned through a portion of the town of Weed in Siskiyou County nearly two years ago. The fire destroyed 82 homes.

Flames inside a shed at the Roseburg Forest Products mill escaped and moved quickly through Weed's Lincoln Heights neighborhood on September 2, 2022. Driven by strong winds, it then raced north through the Hoy Road corridor and reached as far as the community at Lake Shastina.

Details about the cause of the fire are still under investigation, according to Roseburg spokesman Pete Hallin. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has said the blaze originated at the mill.

“It began in the shed on Roseburg property. What triggered is still to be determined,” Hallin said.

'It's torn up a lot of families'

Of the 56 homes that burned in Lincoln Heights, two have been replaced, according to Paul Morton, construction coordinator for 96094 Collaborative, a grassroots nonprofit.

Those houses received final inspections and the owners moved in during May. Eleven more houses in Lincoln Heights are under construction.

The 96094 Collaborative is a local group of survivors, non-profits, government agencies and faith-based groups, according to Steve Bryan, the organization's vice chair. The organization focuses on supplying information and resources that address the needs of survivors of the Mill Fire. The 96094 in the group's name reflects the ZIP code of the Mill Fire's burn areas in Weeds, Lake Shastina and the Hoy Road area.

There were no deaths or injuries in Lake Shastina, but 26 homes burned in the Rainbow Drive/Mt. Blanche area. Three replacement homes were completed by late May and two others are under construction, according to Coral Gross, General Manager of Lake Shastina Property Owners Association.

The rebuilding effort started in Lincoln Heights in late 2022, when charred homes, trees, cars and hazardous materials were cleared from the land. Then in late summer of 2023, the infrastructure — underground water, electricity, and sewage — was replaced.

The trauma of the fire was an ongoing ordeal for survivors as they knew difficult decisions had to be made. Were insurance and lawsuit settlements that were pitched to them something they could live with? For some, rebuilding was too much.

"Generally, it’s an older community who lost their homes. Some survivors took the money and moved from the area," said Morton.

Of the 56 people who lost homes in Weed, 21 said they would not rebuild, according to a recent survey of the survivors' future plans that Weed Councilman Ken Palfini provided to the Siskiyou Daily News. Another 18 survivors still have not determined whether they'll rebuild.

“There is no time limit for rebuilding,” Palfini said. “But regarding the money awarded to survivors, my understanding is if they don't spend it in a certain amount of time, then it becomes subject to the capital gains tax.”

Having multiple family members sharing ownership of a destroyed home became another obstacle holding people back from rebuilding.

"A lot homes where we live are really old. People there didn't get into trusts, where homes are passed down,” said Chester Hopkins. He and his wife, Denise, are Mill Fire survivors and board members of the Collaborative.

“There are a lot of homes where the person on the deed is a deceased parent. You might be living there and taking care of the home, but after the fire, it's tied up with a lot of family members — sisters and brothers who don't live there. So you have to get everybody to agree what to do and who gets the money,” Hopkins said, adding, “I think it’s torn up a lot of families.”

Hopkins doesn’t know how to resolve the situation: “All I can tell you is that, sometimes, I believe you get into a lot of conflict. I wish I had the answer because it would help a lot of us."

During an interview, the Hopkins couple talked about improvements they had made to their home through the years, especially after the Boles Fire of 2014 .

While that wildfire did not directly affect their house, they weighed the effects of the Boles Fire and the area’s long run of drought, then decided to focus on safety upgrades.

Afterwards, they adjusted their homeowners insurance to reflect the value that the upgrades added to the house. That helped the couple receive a higher settlement amount from their insurance company after the Mill Fire hit.

"You get stressed dealing with insurances," said Hopkins. "Ours wasn't too bad, but we have friends that have a lot of trouble. Some of them are still dealing with insurance almost 20 months since the fire."

Trauma of loss continues for many fire survivors

Recovery after the Mill Fire also relates to the stress of living with traumatic loss. A variety of support has been made available to help the survivors recover their sense of well being.

The Collaborative organized spiritual groups, peer-to-peer meetings and Zoom sessions with mental health professionals from outside of the area for Mill Fire survivors.

Hopkins said some Mill Fire survivors have experienced severe cases of PTSD. “About a dozen people still meet,” he said.

Relieving the isolation experienced by some survivors has been another way the Collaborative has helped. Social events, including dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas, have been offered, although Hopkins said, “They haven’t been well attended."

“Not that we didn’t try,” Denise Hopkins added.

Regarding the trauma that people are living with since the fire, the Hopkins used different ways to cope.

“I found that when I was working or something like that, my mind was off all that. I think it really helped,” Chester Hopkins said.

Denise Hopkins said: "It's really been hard trying to get over it and move forward. It's a traumatic thing. In my case, when I would talk to people it always became about the fire. I just really didn't want to talk about it."

It was not only the loss of their home that she recalled, but also things that marked the flow of their lives.

Hopkins said she had left her house to go to the post office only 10 minutes before the fire started.

"It was so windy," she recalled. "They said it went through in five minutes. To come home and see everything gone, all your grand kids' and kids' pictures, things you hoped to pass down — that's all gone.

“It's just gone."

For Chester Hopkins, the disaster was compounded by still-unanswered questions about the mill operations that resulted in the fire.

"It came with a lot of different circumstances. Where the fire started, for one thing," he said. “Then afterward, you had people coming in, trying to get clients. It was pretty much a money grab, people wanting a piece of the pie."

At this point in their lives, he said, "We didn't think we would be going through something like this. We had done a lot of work to our home, we were happy where we were. “So, it was is kind of traumatizing, you know? One day you have a lot and at the end of the night you don't have nothing."

Hopkins said: "It takes awhile to get used to."

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Mill Fire recovery dragging on for many survivors in Weed and Lake Shastina