![]() ![]() Recovery, they were learning, was not so much a road forward as it was a state of being. Nearly 12 months after their home had been reduced to concrete and ash, the family’s odyssey stood as both hope and warning for the newest victims of wildfire. Another massive drain on the finances and manpower of one of California’s poorest counties. More competition for contractors, carpenters, plumbers and permits. Newly rising piles of burnt wood, twisted metal and toxic debris, when the old piles had yet to be buried. Another 175 homes destroyed, and hundreds more people dislocated, sleeping in temporary shelters and on friends’ sofas.įor the Leonards, still struggling to rebuild, it marked another numbing blow. This one, investigators said, was set by a construction worker with a history of drug arrests and a penchant for arson. ![]() Before containment, it tore through 76,067 acres, killing four people and razing nearly 1,300 houses, including the Leonards’ cozy home in the small mountain community of Cobb.Īnd now, at the height of another dusty, dry summer, came the Clayton Fire, ballooning in the doughnut hole of rugged woodland that had escaped the ring of fires in 2015. The Valley Fire raged for more than a week, registering as the third most destructive wildfire in California history. 12, 2015, a spark investigators attribute to a homeowner’s poorly rigged hot tub started another conflagration a few miles west. Combined, the two consumed 49 homes and nearly 95,000 acres of forest and grassland. Two weeks later, the Jerusalem Fire erupted just to the south. The Rocky Fire ignited in the county’s eastern reaches in July 2015, sparked by a faulty water heater at an illegal marijuana grow, according to Cal Fire investigators. And residents, this time in the town of Lower Lake, about 10 miles from Cobb, were grabbing clothing, pets and precious photographs and fleeing the flames.įor homeowners in this rustic county, it had been a year of wildfire, fueled by the deadly intersection of human folly and drought-damaged landscape. The chop of helicopter blades cut the air. It crashed to earth with a violent snapping of branches, followed by a muffled boom.Īfter that, the only sounds were the chirps of birds, and Maya’s sobs as she buried herself in her mother’s arms.īy August, Lake County was on fire yet again.įor the fourth time in little more than a year, sirens screamed down the highways. On its way down, its surviving greenery brushed against healthier firs, creating a gentle whoosh. The Leonards clung to one another as the fir bowed forward, swaying against a backdrop of blue sky and white clouds. The saw bit into the bark and began gobbling the tree’s base. The family realized it would land on the spot that for 17 years had been their living room. If all went as planned, the tree would fall slowly, in the direction of a large notch the men had hacked into its base. David pulled out his cellphone and began capturing video, tears clouding his vision. The chainsaw sputtered and coughed, then buzzed to life, and Maya turned her eyes downward. It would be cut down, along with dozens of smaller trees on their scorched patch of land. But the fir’s age and condition had rendered it a hazard. The tree, soaring 140 feet into the sky, had become a symbol of their former life on Cobb Mountain, before a wall of flames swallowed up their home and the surrounding forest. Most of all, she would miss flying through the forest on the handmade swing attached to the tree’s upper branches.ĭavid and Cindy struggled with their own conflicted emotions. She was going to miss the tree’s piney scent, the boughs where songbirds nested, the summertime shade, the privacy the fir provided. Once elegant and strong, the tree was now charred and feeble, a casualty of the cataclysmic Valley Fire that swept through the county last September. The Leonard family had gathered to say goodbye to the mighty Douglas fir that for 140 years had stood like a sentinel on their property along a winding road in southern Lake County. Maya watched as one of six men in hard hats and heavy boots poured fuel into a chainsaw with a long, jagged blade. Her mother, Cindy, and father, David, each draped an arm around her shoulders. Cobb Mountain – Maya Leonard sighed deeply as she stood between her parents on a sun-dappled morning in late spring, her freckled face somber. ![]()
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