Though the former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called this kind of internal displacement \u201cthe great tragedy of our time,\u201d voluntarily deciding to move away after a wildfire in the United States is something of a luxury. There are only three states in the U.S. in which insured homeowners have the legal right to replace a wildfire-destroyed home by buying a new property instead of rebuilding; for many, mortgages anchor them to properties that are covered in rubble and toxic ash. Three-quarters of homeowners who believe they have adequate insurance discover only after a fire that they\u2019re actually underinsured, meaning that their policies cover less than 75% of the cost of rebuilding.<\/p>\n
While there is limited data about how people disperse after a wildfire, recent tragedies have shed light on those who\u2019ve either cashed out, cut their losses, or remain displaced in what was intended to be temporary housing. In 2018, for example, the Camp Fire burned down almost the entire town of Paradise, California, and as of 2021, 80% of the local population still had not moved back. Nearby Chico became \u201cthe epicenter for Paradise\u2019s long-term relocation,\u201d Abrahm Lustgarten writes in his book about climate migration, On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America, though \u201csmaller numbers of people moved farther,\u201d with survivors ultimately resettling across all 50 states. Cheryl Maynard, a Camp Fire survivor I spoke to for this piece, even told me she\u2019d heard about Paradise residents making it as far as Ukraine.<\/p>\n
In some cases, though, this dispersal can lead to a stigma against those who either chose to leave or decide against returning. In Lahaina, the fact that native Hawaiians are being forced to find housing elsewhere is viewed as a form of \u201cclimate gentrification.\u201d Even in Los Angeles, \u201cmany survivors have been quietly selling due to the many obstacles they face,\u201d Joy Chen, the co-founder and CEO of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, told me in an email. \u201cNearly all are reluctant to speak publicly. Locally, there\u2019s been a lot of backlash to those who sell, and the folks I\u2019ve spoken with just want to move on without drawing attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every story is different and personal, however \u2014 from being forced into temporary housing turned permanent to the reluctance of starting over. In an effort to better understand why people move away after a fire, I spoke to four California wildfire victims about their relocations and what they plan to do next. Their stories have been condensed and edited below.<\/p>\n
Rossana Valverde, 69<\/p>\n
Pasadena, California \u2014 Eaton Fire, 2025<\/p>\n
I grew up in Pasadena. It was a nice community where you could ride your bike outside and there were other kids on the street \u2014 you could all get together, hang out, and get up to no good. It was an all-American town. I stayed, and I built my family there. <\/p>\n
This was the third house I\u2019d owned in Pasadena. I got married at 27, and when I was 30, we upgraded to a bigger house because we wanted to have kids. We bought a 1,700-square-foot house and we were really happy there, but at some point, we decided we needed something a little bigger. So we bought a house in 1990 that abuts the Eaton Canyon, about 300 yards from the Edison Tower where the January fire started<\/a>. There is a wrought-iron fence in our backyard, and it goes straight down into the national forest. My husband and I were young and stupid, and we didn\u2019t have any money, so we bought the worst house on a nice street. It was a real fixer-upper.<\/p>\n In 1993, a fire came through and burned right up to our backyard. We had only minutes to get out. When we came back and the house was still standing, we couldn\u2019t believe our luck. So we moved back in; we got out our mops and brooms, and we cleaned it up. Five years later, my husband was dead of cancer. I don\u2019t know if the toxins caused my husband\u2019s death, but I don\u2019t know that they didn\u2019t. And I was left with a 6-year-old and a 12-year-old to raise by myself.<\/p>\n On the day of the Eaton Fire, my [second] husband and I were sitting and eating dinner when, at about 6:15 p.m., the TV went out. I said, \u201cIt must be Spectrum again.\u201d We didn\u2019t think much of it. Then we heard a loudspeaker, but we live right above the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, and they\u2019re always rousing people at dark, saying, \u201cThe park is closed.\u201d So that\u2019s what I thought it was. But then there was a loud pounding on the front door, and it was my neighbor who\u2019d just pulled into his driveway from work and saw a small fire directly underneath the tower across the canyon. The wind was blowing 70 or 80 miles an hour at the time, and he apparently rushed into his house and screamed for his wife to call 911 and to get the kids and the dog. And then he ran over and started knocking on doors. <\/p>\n We walked outside and there was the fire. I go, \u201cOh no, I know this drill.\u201d Just then, a whole bunch of fire trucks pulled in, and I think that\u2019s the only reason [the house] survived \u2014 because we were the first place burning, and the infrastructure wasn\u2019t stressed yet. There are about eight to 10 houses in our cul-de-sac, and we had four huge fire trucks and probably 40 firefighters. I went back into the house, and I had a list from the last fire of the things I should take; I\u2019d printed it up and taped it inside a closet door, but there was not going to be any time for that. We grabbed our hard drive, laptop, and three dogs, and got into our cars. <\/p>\n By then, it was black outside, with golf ball-sized embers flying by your head. It was like the videos of the fall of Saigon; it was the same damn way. Once I got out of the cul-de-sac, it was complete chaos. Nobody was obeying traffic lights or signs. My son had called \u2014 he lives in Monrovia, which is about 20 minutes away \u2014 and he was saying, \u201cI saw the fire, I\u2019m gonna come.\u201d And I said, \u201cThere\u2019s no time, forget it.\u201d I finally made it to his house, and my husband was already there. And we have been there for seven months now.<\/p>\n The house in Pasadena is absolutely in the same condition as it was on January 7, when we left. It hasn\u2019t been touched; it\u2019s just full of all this toxic stuff that you can\u2019t really see. State Farm\u2019s adjuster came by with a little Kleenex box, and he wiped my hallway and said, \u201cOh, it\u2019s not that bad. You just need a cleaning lady.\u201d But we spent $6,400 to find out it\u2019s full of lead, arsenic, and nickel. Seven months later, we still don\u2019t have enough money to even start the cleanup. The original estimate, before we knew about the heavy metal contamination, was for $120,000. When we found out about the contamination, we got another estimate, and it\u2019s up to $350,000 because everything has to be trashed. All the upholstered goods have to go. The hardwood floor has to go, because it\u2019s grooved and distressed, and you can\u2019t get the lead out of that. The carpets have to go. The window treatments have to go.<\/p>\n Fortunately, I get along with my son and daughter-in-law, but they\u2019re a young couple and they\u2019re relatively newly married, and they just bought that house in October. Then we move in with our three dogs, and it\u2019s only a 1,000-square-foot house. I said, \u201cWe need to find someplace to rent. We can\u2019t stay here.\u201d <\/p>\n I talked to my financial planner, and he said, \u201cWe worked with people in Paradise after the Camp Fire, and people identical to you, with no fire damage but just smoke damage, they weren\u2019t back in their house for one or two years.\u201d And I said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be out of your mind.\u201d But it\u2019s true, because you\u2019re fighting with insurance the whole time. State Farm is still only okaying month-to-month rentals, and try to find a place to rent month-to-month with three dogs. So I asked my financial planner, \u201cIs there any way we can buy another house right now?\u201d And he crunched the numbers and said, \u201cEverything\u2019s got to be financed, but we can get a conventional loan and finance a mortgage, and then we can borrow against your portfolio for the down payment. You can survive for about two years that way before it gets financially untenable.\u201d <\/p>\n So we put in an offer. We bought a house. We aren\u2019t officially living there yet because it\u2019s really dirty. We\u2019re here every day, cleaning everything. But we\u2019ll be in Monrovia, about seven or eight blocks from my son\u2019s house, and the house wasn\u2019t in the plume of the fire. <\/p>\n I worry that [the insurance company is] not going to give us enough money to clean up our house appropriately. I\u2019m just not going to feel safe there anymore. My kids are, of course, advocating that we not go back. As my son says \u2014 because he\u2019s so charming \u2014 he says, \u201cMom, you\u2019re old now. You got out of two fires. Your luck has run out. The first one, you had a 10-minute warning. The second one, you had a six-minute warning. I don\u2019t think you should push it.\u201d<\/p>\n But it\u2019s home, right? My whole life is there. Neighbors I\u2019ve known for 35 years. I had saved up my nickels and dimes for about three decades to make it my Barbie\u2019s dream house. I don\u2019t know how much money we\u2019re going to have to put into the house to get it into shape where we can either go back or sell it. But how could I sell it without making sure it\u2019s clean? Somebody else is going to live there. What if they have little kids? <\/p>\n Larry and Jackie Slayen, 82 and 80<\/p>\n Kenwood, California \u2014 Tubbs Fire, 2017<\/p>\n Larry: Kenwood is beautiful wine country. We had been looking for a home where we could spend time with our family on weekends and in the summertime, and that\u2019s why we bought the house. We lived there for about 12 years before we started renting it as an Airbnb on weekends, or sometimes for a week at a time. On the night of the fire, the last tenant had just moved out. Though the Kenwood house was our primary residence, we were luckily not living there at the time, so our most valuable possessions weren\u2019t there, either.<\/p>\n We were awakened at 3:30 in the morning by a friend who had heard there was a fire up near Kenwood. We went to the TV, turned it on, and watched it. Coverage focused on the area around the Kaiser hospital, but we knew it was in our area because we\u2019d heard from a neighbor who was running for his life and who said our house was on fire and there was no way there\u2019d be anything left.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t get up there until two and a half weeks later. They\u2019d completely closed the area off to get rid of all the dangerous brush. It was hard going back. <\/p>\n Jackie: In the beginning, we thought about rebuilding. It felt like we were fighting back. Like, \u201cJust put the house right back where it was!\u201d<\/p>\n Larry: We immediately got in touch with a contractor who could clean up the place. He went through the bureaucracy to get the okay to clean it all up. We got an architect. We were ready to rebuild.<\/p>\n Jackie: Then I looked at our lives and said, \u201cDo I really want to start picking out doorknobs again? To go through two years of hassle trying to rebuild?\u201d<\/p>\n Larry: At that time, we were in our late 70s. We just figured, This is just ridiculous. This is going to be such a heartache.<\/p>\n We were really careful and diligent, though. There are people out there who will deal with the insurance process for you, but they take 30% of the proceeds. You don\u2019t want to do that, but some people don\u2019t think they have the time or the intelligence to go through it all. We went through the whole thing, start to finish, and it took us two years and eight months before we were done. We had this house here in Marin County that we were renting, so we didn’t have to worry about moving anywhere, and so we were able to go through the process slowly. It\u2019s very emotional, but a few days after the fire, you\u2019ve got to sit down and do your homework.<\/p>\n After we received the money for the trees and shrubs and the loss of the house, we still had the land, so we put it up for sale. A young couple \u2014 speculators \u2014 bought it, and they built a home in their style, and then they put it up for sale.<\/p>\n Jackie: The real problem is \u2014 like the new people who bought the house \u2014 they don\u2019t know what Kenwood was like before. We were surrounded by the Trione-Annadel State Park, and when we looked out, we could see miles of trees. Now, when you look out, you see trees, but they\u2019re all burnt. Every time we go up there, it just looks burnt to me.<\/p>\n Cheryl Maynard, 63<\/p>\n Paradise, California \u2014 Camp Fire, 2018<\/p>\n I lived in the Paradise area for eight years. I\u2019d lived in Magalia, which is just a few miles to the north of Paradise, but it was very cold \u2014 much colder than I was used to. So I sold my three-bedroom home and moved down to what they called the Banana Belt. We actually received some sunlight through the trees.<\/p>\n On the day of the fire, I had a friend visiting me from out of town. The day before, I had received a phone call from PG&E \u2014 a live person, not a recording! \u2014 saying that if there were high winds, they would be turning off the power. That morning, I got up and it looked kind of cloudy, but there was no smoke. My friend needed a prescription from CVS, and I told her, \u201cYou probably should call them.\u201d But she was stubborn and looked at me like, I\u2019ll do it when I want to. So we hung around for a little bit, and then I heard her calling CVS on her own terms. The guy there told her, \u201cLady, what are you doing here? The whole town is leaving. I\u2019m locking up and I\u2019m getting out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n We thought, \u201cOkay, we\u2019d better leave.\u201d I\u2019d helped out in the condos there; I was on the safety committee, and we could evacuate 40 people in about 35 minutes. But they\u2019d canceled the committee, so we didn\u2019t have it on the day of the fire. I didn\u2019t know if people were going to make it out or not. We had one person with no legs, married to a deaf lady, and I worried about them so much.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m starting to panic. I took a quilt on the floor that I was trying to make for my son that had taken me forever \u2014 just a tie quilt, a $10 value. I took a picture of him in a frame that he and his girlfriend had given me. I took two salt and pepper shakers, one from each grandma. I left my china and my silver. I left a 100-year-old quilt, because it wasn\u2019t in my line of sight. I left my mom\u2019s wedding dress and my wedding dress.<\/p>\n Outside, the trees were burning behind the garages. One lady was in her garage next door, and I thought, \u201cOh my gosh, these people are inside there.\u201d We stopped and asked if they needed help, and they said no, they had people coming. I should have made them get in my car. The condo manager drove around the parking lot a few times, honking his horn, but you couldn\u2019t hear it because of the wind.<\/p>\n My friend said she was going to drive. I was holding onto my dog, who\u2019s terrified of fire and things exploding. I told my friend, \u201cDon\u2019t go along the canyon because I don\u2019t like it; it\u2019s a drop off.\u201d Well, the fire jumped over my car \u2014 like a rainbow \u2014 and went into the other median. I said to her, \u201cMan, that was cool!\u201d My dad raised me that way.<\/p>\n What my friend did then was, she went over into the wrong lane, and she went down against the upcoming traffic. At that point, they\u2019d cut it off and made it that way. I was very blessed that we did not get trapped. She was doing about 70 going down that road and following a police officer. I said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to get pulled over.\u201d She said, \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s worried about me right now.\u201d<\/p>\n At the bottom of the hill, another police officer directed us into a grocery store parking lot. It was packed with cars and people and dogs and animals, and we all got out and turned around and stared up at the mountain. There was just smoke and people coming down, people crying. <\/p>\n I went to my son\u2019s in-laws with my friend, and on the third day, I found out that my condo was gone. So I booked a flight to where my family lived, and I\u2019ve never been back. I went back to Chico a year later to pick up some things \u2014 I had a friend meet me there and we had lunch \u2014 but I never went back up the hill. There were so many people in the Facebook group [for fire victims] that were struggling mentally and emotionally because they were living in the burn scar, and there was no way I wanted to go up and see it. I\u2019d talked to a tow truck driver before I left \u2014 I ran into one going into a store, and he was working up there hauling all the cars away \u2014 and I said, \u201cHow is it?\u201d He said, \u201cIt\u2019s bad. It\u2019s bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Recovery has been really complicated. A lady started the Facebook group after reading PG&E\u2019s 2019 bankruptcy court documents, and she told people to vote against the plan. The $13.5 billion Fire Victims Trust was going to pay the 70,000 survivors of the Butte, North Bay, and Camp Fires \u2014 all sparked by PG&E \u2014 half in cash, half in the company\u2019s stock. But it was approved by more than 85%<\/a> of survivors. How do you get 70,000 people to agree on anything?<\/p>\n The day they signed the deal, PG&E\u2019s stock was only worth $9 a share \u2014 so it was only worth $11 billion \u2014 and we had to wait for it to get to, like, $14 a share for us to break even at $13 billion. And we couldn\u2019t sell until after shareholders were able to sell, which knocked the value of the stock down. All this was so complicated, and Wall Street manipulated the whole thing. We have been fighting to get the remaining 30% of the recovery settlement that we still have not received from PG&E<\/a>. We got some preliminary payments, but most people can\u2019t afford to stay in Paradise. Many people have a distaste because of being victimized, politicized, and not treated fairly. <\/p>\n There\u2019s no hospital anymore; there\u2019s not the medical facilities like they used to be. What are you going to do if you\u2019re 75 and used to [a Kaiser Permanente hospital] down the street? You have to end up going to the Bay Area. Other people left because there is fire after fire in the state, and we couldn\u2019t handle it for health reasons \u2014 the smoke, the PTSD. I\u2019ve talked to many people who said, \u201cThere\u2019s a fire outside my house, three miles away, and I can see smoke! Oh my gosh, I\u2019m going to die!\u201d Every once in a while, when the power goes out, I freak out. And imagine living in Paradise, where they have all those fires around them.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been hard. Financially, I had been set up. My highest payment in Paradise was my [home owner\u2019s association] fee \u2014 they\u2019d just raised it to $320, and we were really complaining about that. Now I\u2019m paying rent of $1,500-something a month, and with utilities, it\u2019s like $1,900. <\/p>\n I worry about my future. I shouldn\u2019t \u2014 I know God\u2019s going to take care of me \u2014 but some days I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called this kind of internal displacement \u201cthe great tragedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19484,7,9,8,20,19485,383,15755,6774,5705,13],"class_list":{"0":"post-25397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-am-briefing","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-climate","13":"tag-climate-tech","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-electric-vehicles","16":"tag-energy","17":"tag-homepage","18":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}