CLEARLAKE OAKS >> In the wake of massive devastation left by hurricanes in Texas and Florida, about 25 Lake County residents turned their thoughts inward Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of Lake County’s own natural disaster, the worst on record.
It was two years ago Tuesday that the Valley Fire started on Cobb Mountain, devastating Cobb and several other mountain communities before roaring through Middletown and into Hidden Valley Lake, changing the landscape of the county for years to come.
The fire’s anniversary was remembered, along with another fire-related event, Tuesday afternoon at the Moose Lodge in Clearlake Oaks. The lodge served as an unofficial evacuation site and distribution center during and after the fire.
Hidden Valley Lake resident Lori DeFiore said she remembers the fire well. “My daughter lived on Cobb and after the fire started, she drove down to our house and by the time they arrived, we were being told to evacuate,” she said.
The fire was so bad and moved so fast that as DeFiore and her husband were evacuating, she said there were flaming leaves and burning pieces of wood “flying over our heads.”
She added, “I had a very panicky feeling. Even my cat was having a panic attack.”
The DeFiores, along with about four hundred other fire evacuees, ended up at the Moose Lodge after hearing that it was a “sanctuary” while they were in the Walmart parking lot in Clearlake.
“We were overwhelmed at how good they treated us at the Moose Lodge,” she said. “The volunteers here worked their tails off.”
She said she bonded with many of the other evacuees at the lodge who were among the first to arrive. “A lot of us helped the newcomers who were coming in.”
Her husband, Chuck DeFiore, tried to talk about his Valley Fire experiences Tuesday but became choked up and fighting back tears, apologized and walked away, too caught up in the emotions that talk of the fire brought on.
The Valley Fire — the third-worst in state history — was first reported as a small,
wind-whipped wildland fire in the 8000 block of High Valley Road near Bottle Rock Road just outside of Cobb at 1:24 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015.
The first fire units on the scene reported a two-acre fire burning at a moderate rate of speed in dense dry oak and grass woodland.
High temperatures, strong gusty winds and humidity under 10 percent, along with abundant fuel, caused the fire to explode shortly after starting, consuming more than 10,000 acres in the first five hours.
When the inferno ended on Oct. 5, 2015, the Valley Fire had destroyed 76,000 acres, including an estimated 7.5 million trees, along with 1,322 houses, 27 apartment buildings and nearly 100 businesses.
Four residents who did not evacuate the inferno — two from Anderson Springs and one each from Cobb and Hidden Valley Lake — died in the blaze.
CalFire arson investigators determined the fire was caused by allegedly faulty and illegally installed electrical connections to an outdoor hot tub.
Tuesday’s event organizer Judy Ellis lost her Cobb Mountain house to the Valley Fire and now lives in Lower Lake. She evacuated to the lodge during the blaze.
“I lost everything in the fire,” she said. “But I’m grateful for the firefighters of the whole world that we’re here and I’m grateful for FEMA,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Now, every time I hear a fire truck or smell smoke, I get worried,” she added, a sentiment shared by many other evacuees from the Valley and other large wildland fires the county has experienced in the past several years, starting with the Wye and Walker fires in 2012.
Alice Veiga of Clearlake Oaks is a senior regent with the Moose Lodge and volunteered at the lodge during the fire.
“Most people here were so stressed out that they didn’t want to talk about the fire,” she said.
Clearlake Oaks resident Kathie Balleria also volunteered at the lodge during the Valley Fire, checking in evacuees when they arrived. She agreed with Veiga.
“People were so stressed out,” she said.
Despite that, she has many positive memories of her time volunteering at the lodge following the evacuation.
“Two of the people were next-door neighbors who didn’t know each other until they met here,” she said.
The second event at the Moose Lodge on Tuesday was a Celebration of Life for Debra Jean Cantrell, a Valley Fire survivor who died on April 28.
Several of Cantrell’s friends, including Ellis, spoke during the celebration, remembering her life and the common thread that bonded them: the Valley Fire.
Cantrell was seriously burned as a young child and carried the physical and emotional scars of the trauma the rest of her life. But it was a life she lived with vigor snd enthusiasm despite her health problems, including diabetes, that later in life left her confined to a wheelchair, her friends said.
Her burn trauma did not stop her from serving in the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s when she was deployed to Vietnam. Her military service in the Vietnam War left her with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a medical condition she dealt with the rest of her life, Ellis said.
After retiring from the military in the 1980s, Cantrell became a deputy sheriff in Florida.
She moved from Florida to Jellystone Park on Cobb Mountain in 2014 where she met Ellis, who became her caregiver. Cantrell “very quickly” became popular on Cobb Mountain, Ellis said.
Both women were in Sacramento when the Valley Fire broke out on Sept. 12, 2015. They were there for Ellis’ graduation from the University of Phoenix. The happy event turned solemn when the women learned that “Cobb Mountain was on fire.”
They rushed back to Jellystone Park immediately following the graduation ceremony.
The next day, both women, with their pets, evacuated from Jellystone, arriving at Konocti Vista Casino in Lakeport before going to the Moose Lodge.
Much of southwest Lake County was under mandatory evacuation orders. Many evacuees fled their homes with little or no advance notice, leaving behind everything they owned except the clothes they were wearing and what little they carried in their pockets.
The blaze destroyed the two women’s homes shortly after they evacuated, something the women didn’t learn about until days later.
“She was scared for her life because of being burned as a child,” Ellis said of her late friend.
Regarding their evacuation to the Moose Lodge, Ellis said, “When we got here, she was scared and didn’t know if she would have a home to come back to.”
But once at the lodge, Cantrell soon put her own problems aside and went to work as the unofficial “mother hen” of the evacuation center, rolling in her wheelchair from person to person, offering comfort and helping attend to their material and emotional needs
This included giving hope and hugs to those who needed them.
“If she saw something that needed to be done, she would do it,” said Chuck DeFiore. “Her wheelchair never sat still.”
Ellis, wiping away tears, said of Cantrell, who went by her middle name, “What I miss most about Jean is her spunkiness and her different personalities. She was a survivor.”
Following the ceremony, a buffet-style lunch was served, featuring entrees and sides provided by the ladies of the Moose Lodge, or as Ellis affectionately called the women, Moose-ettes.
