Fire has a rich, and devastating, history all its own.
The Summit Fire ripped through more than 4,000 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains three years ago, on May 22, 2008, destroying 34 homes and 82 “outbuildings” and more than 160 vehicles. Lasting five days, it also destroyed residents’ treasured possessions, killed their animals and shattered the solitude they had enjoyed.
Three years later, wildflowers color the steep hillsides and the grass looks healthy in a remote area with awe-inspiring views and an off-the-grid feel. But many trees are gone, or are blackened shells, looking forlorn amid the beauty of the natural scenery. And amid the architectural splendor and architectural squalor are the mix of folks who live there.
Looking across the mountains, the path of the blaze is still visible. The area is about a 30-minute drive from Highway 17 and Summit Road, with the last section of the drive on narrow, mountainous, dirt roads. Piles of branches, dirt from construction and other debris are sprinkled throughout, and many of the nicer driveways are fronted by locked, steel gates.
Property owners include wealthy business owners, a Buddhist organization, retired firefighters and others.
County planning officials estimate just five residents have gotten permits to rebuild, or are in the process. The county cut building permit costs 60 percent for those rebuilding from the fire, and gave them priority in the review chain.
Some have been grateful for that, while others are still hot at the county for its fire response, lack of attention to the area’s roads and other issues. Others who had lived there in dwellings that were never up to code have simply hauled a new trailer up the hill. Some have left the area; one family wanted to live in a less remote area anyway, and moved to a Soquel area property to grow organic lemons. The sons of one elderly couple who lost valued antiques in the fire rebuilt their parent’s home.
On one road, Ormsby Trail, there were 10 homes standing on the day of the fire. Three of those are being rebuilt, plus a fourth on land previously vacant, a longtime resident said.
None who were home that day will ever forget.
FIRE’S FURY
Barry Wothers, 54, who lost his home, said the winds were 70 mph that day, and that when he caught sight of the fire about 5:30 a.m., there was no question of staying. He grabbed his four dogs; the two llamas “rode it out” and somehow survived, he said. His land became a Cal Fire staging ground and front line of sorts against the raging wildfire. He said firefighters took a valiant stand there, almost stopping the fire, about an hour before winds died down and the devastation lulled.
Wothers, a licensed contractor who has been active in the Ormsby Fire Brigade volunteer firefighting company, stood this week on the concrete roof of the new 1,700-square-foot circular home he is building into the side of a hill to replace the one engulfed by the flames.
Eventually, the roof will be topped with soil and fire-resistant vegetation and become a “living roof,” he said. Down around the sweeping driveway, where the home is to overlook a large valley, the walls and rows of windows of the forming home call to mind old Roman stone. The new home perched into the precipice overlooking the valley is like a bunker, and will have roll-down steel doors in which he and his wife, Jennifer, and his 18-year-old son, Forest, can perhaps roll down and ride out the next one. Or leave.
He shrugged, and added, “I thought I was pretty good last time.”
Wildfires are kind of expected there, he said. To him, the Summit Fire became the chance to build the home he always wanted.
Wothers grew up on the “lower hill,” down near the Summit store. He bought the 28 acres at age 21, more than three decades ago, scooping up the spot with views of the Sierra and Monterey Bay where he and other local kids practiced shooting bottles.
“This was the four-wheeler spot in the ’70s,” he said. “We were learning to shoot here as a kid. There was glass everywhere.”
Now, he is building, with a backhoe, wheelbarrows and “a lot of friends.”
All the county-required permits to rebuild cost about $80,000, he said.
In stark contrast, Dan Wallace, who said he owns several properties in the area, is angry about the fire response, the lack of county attention to road and other amenities, and is suing the county and Cal Fire the state firefighting agency doubles as the county fire agency, approving fire safety permits necessary for building, as well as fighting fire in and near wildland areas.
Wallace also was rebuilding this week, using concrete and other materials to do so. He believes county officials don’t want to encourage people to live up there and so don’t provide services that homeowners deserve.
And he faults Cal Fire for the blaze.
“Cal Fire should have been responsible,” he said. “They should’ve been on top of it. This is Cal Fire’s $22 million screw-up.”
Wallace said the fees and costs to rebuild are “outrageous” and that many can’t afford to rebuild. Add to that now-skyrocketing costs to obtain fire insurance, necessary to get a home loan, and a new home isn’t an option for many. Though he said he can afford it.
“They need to stay out of our hills,” Wallace summed up, speaking of some in local government.
However, Wallace welcomed a sheriff’s deputy who walked up asking if Wallace had seen an old gray pickup. Deputy Troy Zube said he couldn’t catch the vehicle in his patrol car, not on those roads, and doesn’t get up to the remote area as much as he’d like. Zube said “I get up here when I can; it’s so beautiful.”
Complaints began to roll in the dawn of the fire about as soon as the 911 calls did.
Marc Kraft, who lives on Ormbsy Trail, said soon after the fire, when the fear was still fresh, he had started calling deputies and firefighters and got no help from either.
“They had plenty of time to get up there; the roads were totally open,” he said. “There was no way I could do it with a garden hose.”
He said he called the Corralitos Cal Fire station directly and was told they were awaiting orders.
“There was no one to help evacuate; I was calling for an hour and a half and asking, What’s going on?’”
He said he was told central commanders had to figure out the whole thing first.
Later, after he helped make sure his neighbors knew to leave, it got terrifying, he said.
“The fire jumped the road Ormsby Trail and I got really scared and got the dog in the car and said, I’m not going to die in here,’ and I just left.”
Cal Fire dispatchers in Felton cover Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties; Cal Fire dispatchers in Morgan Hill cover Santa Clara County.
At the time, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mike Marcucci said Cal Fire originally dispatched units from the Santa Clara and Santa Cruz county sides. The fire began in Santa Clara and jumped into Santa Cruz.
“We also only have so many engines,” Marcucci said. “Every 911 call we got, we gave to incident commanders. They decide how to deploy resources. It’s helter-skelter at the beginning of a fire.”
THE SPARK THAT STARTED THE BLAZE
Thursday, the man charged with starting the fire, Los Gatos contractor Channing Verden was ordered to stand trial on charges his recklessness caused the blaze. A trial date has not been set. If convicted, Verden faces a sentence of probation to up to five years in prison, prosecutors said.
Verden has not been charged with starting the fire intentionally, but prosecutors said massive burn piles he left while working at a Summit Road property six weeks earlier were not doused with water properly. Wind whipped the embers, spreading the flames for miles.
Verden was clearing trees and brush and burning them so the landowner, Andrew Napell, a computer chip designer, could build a house. Verden denied the wildfire originated on his job site.
Cal Fire officials visited the burn piles shortly after the job started in March 2008. They told Verden the piles were too large and needed to be monitored 24 hours a day. Verden assured the firefighters he had done controlled burns before and he was working to get a water source to the property. It’s unclear if Cal Fire ever revisited the site to ensure the burn piles were extinguished.
Wallace, the Summit Road area homeowner, contends Cal Fire should have followed up.
“Channing Verden is the scapegoat,” Wallace said.
Cal Fire Division Chief John Ferreira said many factors affect firefighters’ ability to fight a wildfire once it picks up speed with a plentiful supply of dry fuel. The vegetation in that mountainous area is “lighter and flashier” than it is in the lower parts of the county, Ferreira said.
The hills are full of poorly marked streets and addresses with difficult access for fire vehicles, much less an average vehicle, he said.
Because it’s a remote area with long driving times, firefighters can have “very limited choices” about which house to try to save, he said.
“It comes with the territory up there,” Ferreira said. “And I’ll certainly defend our firefighters to the hilt. They did all the could, and to be frank, some of those houses we may not have known existed.
“You can train and do all that, but there is not much chance to go up every driveway and some are so narrow you can’t get up them anyway,” the tenured division chief said.
The flames shot an incredible 150 feet up in the air that day, Ferreira said of May 22, 2008.
All the wrong factors came together that early morning, he added, with high winds, low humidity, lots of dry fuel, pre-dawn lighting that made it hard to see, and more.
“It was just a bad combination of things,” he said. “And it was stunningly fast, all those years of drought took their toll it seems. … I know there are still questions about our abilities, but there was really no catching it with the winds and the fuel.”
OUTRUNNING THE FIRE
Holly Waddle, who lived next to the property where the fire was alleged to have started, said she was fleeing for her life that day. After living there for more than 30 years, she said the biggest fear on the mountain is fire.
And now, she said, speaking about the criminal case, “People are trying to get back on their feet, but they need closure.” She said she thinks there were “mistakes all around,” and that the bottom line is that “nothing is going to bring people’s stuff back.”
Darcy Houghton, a county planner who has worked closely with people who lost homes in the Summit Fire, said most people she has dealt with have been grateful for her help in rebuilding.
“Some were just going to throw up their hands and were getting a hard time from the insurance company or something and were just going to go rent a home somewhere,” she said. “But we did go out of our way to help people rebuild. The problem with the Summit Fire is a lot of the units were not completely legal. But the legal ones did pretty good.”
There are various approvals needed to rebuild, she said, but the basic building permit was more than halved. For example, before the fire, a permit to rebuild a 1,000-square-foot home would have cost $9,018. For a burned-out homeowner, the county dropped the permit cost to $5,511.
The county deal is valid until the end of this year’s fire season, Houghton said.
Wothers, who is building his dream home, said the approval process and the insurance process for him were not nearly as bad as the bank’s financing requirements.
He seemed happy earlier this week as he worked on his home. As he prepared to return to work, Wothers paused and leaned against a shiny black barbecue, near his aging Suburban, small Isuzu pickup and a flatbed of some type. Across a small dip in the landscape could be seen a line of old, 1950s trucks — two Chevrolets, two Fords, two Dodges, the old yellows and oranges and blues somehow adding to the canvas of the landscape.
There, he said, will be the outdoor amphitheater, with couches in the truck beds, a big screen.
“Yes, this my dream,” he said.
As Wothers turned back to the project, he gave a wry smile before adding with a sweep of his hand that it was all “like the phoenix, rising from the ashes…”
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