BERRY CREEK, Calif. — It’s been five years since a sudden shift in the wind brought the North Complex fire roaring up a remote canyon into the pines of Berry Creek, where it incinerated almost all of the more than 1,500 houses in the area and killed 16 people.
But to many of the hundreds of people who remain in the mountain hamlet in Butte County, the blaze that burned through their homes and their lives often feels as if it might have happened five weeks ago instead of five years.
A Times analysis has found that only about 5% of the homes that were burned have been rebuilt, the lowest percentage of major fires in the state over the last eight years by a gigantic margin. Hundreds of residents left, never to return. Some concluded it was foolhardy to even consider rebuilding in such a fire-prone place. But hundreds more stayed — and without homes, people have been camping out year after year amid a fire-denuded landscape in mobile homes and lean-tos. About 80% of the children at Berry Creek School still bed down each night in an RV or mobile home, according to Patsy Oxford, the former school superintendent. They wake up each morning to reminders of apocalypse: blackened stumps and ghostly bare branches where a tree canopy used to be, and bald rocks and makeshift shelters where homes used to stand.
The situation is in stark contrast to the rebuilding efforts in more suburban communities, like Santa Rosa and Redding, where construction was buzzing along two years after the flames.
The era of mega-fires is causing a little noticed climate migration that is reshaping life for thousands of people in California’s backwoods, pushing small, self-reliant mountain communities to the brink of extinction.
Berry Creek and nearby Feather Falls have been around since the late 19th century. But these places are far from job centers, have little infrastructure and are sparsely populated, mostly by retirees and people with few financial resources. In these places the dearth of home insurance, the semi-isolation and the continued threat of fire make it particularly difficult to rebound after one hits.
“Most of us can’t rebuild. And nobody helped us,” said Amy Novak, 45, who said she and her husband had nine homes on their property before the fire, many of them rentals that generated income. They all burned down, and none were well-insured, meaning Novak and her husband do not have the funds to rebuild. Instead, she lives in a trailer on the homestead, where she feels persecuted by the blazing sun that her tree canopy used to shield her from. Novak, who works as a teacher’s aide at the local elementary school, which just reopened last fall, sat in a darkened classroom on a recent afternoon and began to describe her travails, but broke off, dabbing at her eyes. “You’re going to make me cry.”
The plight of Berry Creek and other communities ravaged by the North Complex fire offers a window into the merciless calculus of fire recovery — and residents and officials warn it is a fate more and more communities across California may soon face.
The desolation is all the more bitter to many here because of the recovery underway in the nearby Butte County town of Paradise, which was decimated by the 2018 Camp fire but has since rebuilt about 30% of its homes. To be sure, Paradise still bears the scars of that devastating blaze, which killed 85 people. But these days, it feels like one big construction site. Nail guns tat-tat-tat and chain saws screech on almost every block. Banners and signs advertise the reopening of restaurants and stores, and traffic backs up at busy intersections. All this has been fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars that have come to the town and its residents from federal and state aid, from private charitable foundations, and from PG&E, which paid more than $13 billion to settle lawsuits for its power lines sparking the Camp fire and other giant blazes in the state.
Berry Creek feels like a ghost town. The whisper of wind in the remaining trees and across the charred earth is often the only sound. Locals caution visitors to make sure they have enough gas and water in their cars — because there’s nowhere to buy anything. Residents also warn visitors to be wary of danger: Since the fire, illegal marijuana grows, long a presence here, have multiplied and marched across the landscape, sometimes protected by armed lookouts.
The disparity arises, say county officials and residents, in part because the North Complex fire was sparked by lightning strikes — residents couldn’t very well sue the clouds above their heads as they could PG&E.
What’s more, as obliterating as it was, the blaze –- which roared up in the late summer of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic lockdowns and the final stretch of a tumultuous presidential election— never drew the widespread attention of the Camp fire two years before or the Los Angeles firestorms in January. The president and other dignitaries didn’t rush to Butte County as they did after the 2018 Camp fire. Stevie Nicks, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and dozens of other rock stars didn’t scramble to donate their time to a fundraising concert as they did after fires leveled Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
Berry Creek has fallen “through the cracks,” said Neil Meyer, who moved to the area in 2004 to grow his own food on 37 acres just below the town. Meyer has dedicated the last five years to trying to get recovery resources to his community.
But despite his and other residents’ efforts, many are beginning to wonder if the town will ever come back and some wonder whether it should — given the likelihood of another fire.
“We are totally forgotten,” said Terri Brown, 65, a former nurse who moved to Berry Creek in 2018. “I retired and came up here, but now there’s nothing here. You don’t have neighbors. I moved behind the store, but the store is gone. It was a town with growth potential. But now there is nothing for us.”
Still, Brown rebuilt her house — in part, she said, because housing prices being what they are, she can’t afford to live anywhere else. “I’m pretty well stuck here,” she said. “I could never sell this house for what I put into it.” Last year, Brown’s insurance company canceled her policy. Now, she lives in the woods without any coverage to protect her from future fires.
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Settlement in Berry Creek, which sits about 20 miles northeast of Oroville in the foothills near the edge of Lake Madrone, began with workers at the nearby mines, along with cattle ranchers and farmers, who built houses tucked into the towering pines. Soon came a post office, a store, and a little school with a bustling 4-H club that was frequently celebrated for its exploits in the local papers.
By the time the North Complex fire ignited in the late summer of 2020, a few of the residents could trace family back to those original settlers, but many more had moved “onto the hill” (as they call it) in more recent decades, seeking an affordable refuge from urban life. They had a market, a gas station, and several churches with lively congregations. They had miles of trails, winding creeks, and a sense of peace that many said they felt deep in their souls whenever they looked out at their mountain vistas.
Jackie and Patrick McDonald, high school sweethearts from Hesperia, came more than four decades ago. They bought a house on eight acres, and eventually expanded to nine other buildings, including a yoga studio, a wood shop, a barn and a garage. They grew their own food and built a community among like-minded people who believed in harmony and self-reliance. When their daughter Sunshine grew up, she and her husband bought a house a quarter of a mile away.
Amy Novak came seeking a quiet place where her dog could roam free.
Neil Meyer and his partner, David (“I think we’re known as the local gays,” Meyer said), came because they could afford enough land to grow their peaches, figs, pears, apples and vegetables. They even had a cow for milk. They still buy flour and coffee, but not much else. “We have a paradise here, and we’ve worked really hard to make this be a little garden of Eden,” Meyer said.
In assessing the community in 2008, the Chico Enterprise Record wrote: “Part of the reason Berry Creek residents choose to live where they do is because they are an independent lot, who rebel at being told what to do.”
It was the flipside of alpine vacation retreats like Incline Village, Mammoth Lakes or Lake Arrowhead. Before the fire, almost every one of the 60 or so students at the local school qualified for free or reduced-price lunches. And as insurance companies canceled policies or kept raising rates, particularly after the 2018 Camp fire burned up Paradise and nearly reached Berry Creek, more residents lost coverage or were forced to settle for an amount that would not cover rebuilding costs.
Then, in August 2020, lightning sparked a series of fires in the area, including one that began burning in a river canyon on U.S. Forest Service land. The Forest Service made the decision to let it burn — it was in an unpopulated area and fighting it could have put firefighters’ lives at risk.
On Sept. 8, the wind picked up, and the Bear fire exploded in size, ultimately merging with other fires to form the North Complex. The fire raced toward Berry Creek, and the residents evacuated that afternoon. By the next day, almost the entire town was gone.
In addition to the 16 people who died, more than 100 were injured.
The fire itself burned for nearly two more months, and wasn’t fully contained until Dec. 3. It was the sixth-largest fire in California history, and the fifth-deadliest. (Given that mega-fires continue unabated, it is now the eighth-largest and the sixth-deadliest.)
“An incredibly beautiful ecosystem [was] destroyed,” wrote Dave Daley, a fifth-generation cattle rancher, who said 400 of his cows and their calves were burned to death, along with countless wildlife. “We lost beautiful landscapes that we have loved for generations.”
Still, by the time the flames were out, outside the burn zone, they were mostly forgotten.
The first COVID-19 vaccines were rolling out, and people were focused on emerging from the pandemic. In the coming months, rioters stormed the Capitol in Washington and President Trump waged a battle to overturn the election. California was consumed with a bitter recall campaign against Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The flood of aid that had come two years earlier for Paradise never materialized for Berry Creek.
“We saw an enormous charitable response for Camp fire victims,” said Katie Simmons, deputy chief administrative officer overseeing recovery efforts for Butte County. “Two years later, North Complex hits and … it’s entirely different.”
That, coupled with the lack of a deep-pocketed entity such as PG&E to sue and the fact that many in town were uninsured or under-insured, meant the community was heavily dependent on public aid for any recovery it could get.
“If I’d never entered the field of disaster recovery, I might think recovery was dependent upon the number of acres burned and fire duration,” said Simmons of Butte County. “From a firefighting perspective these details matter for response. But for recovery, they are less consequential than the cause of the fire and who is responsible for rebuilding the community.”
Unlike Paradise, Berry Creek was unincorporated; there were no local elected officials who were solely focused on the community or a city bank account to channel recovery funds through.
There were other barriers too.
The cost of building materials had skyrocketed during the pandemic, for one. And many homes in Berry Creek were on their own septic systems, which needed to be reconstructed to current codes, further driving up costs.
What’s more, officials decided to spend affordable housing dollars that could have gone to building in Berry Creek down the hill in the cities of Oroville or Chico. (They also sent some money to a multifamily project in Paradise.)
The argument was that those areas were better-suited for apartments.
The problem was, people in Berry Creek didn’t want to live in Oroville or Chico, both of which many people referred to as “the city” and described as too urban for them.
Novak, the teacher’s aide who lost her home and rental properties, said she had relocated to Chico after the fire but “I was back up here in two weeks. I couldn’t live in Chico.” She had to “walk around with five poop bags” for her dog’s waste, she said, and “people will come chase you down if you let your dog poop.”
She added: “When you’ve been up here so long, you get used to the quiet and the darkness.”
And so, year after year, through stifling hot summers and snow-dusted winters, people have been camping out in Berry Creek.
It’s not clear how long county officials will allow that to continue.
“How long do you let people live in an RV without septic [system] or a well?” said Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly. “What if typhus breaks out?”
County officials allowed people to camp on their land after the fire, and then offered several extensions, but stepped-up code enforcement against long-term RV living may be coming soon.
It is a prospect many in Berry Creek dread, which Connelly said he is well aware of.
“It’s a complicated issue,” he said, noting that many residents simply don’t have the money. But, he added, “there’s a limit to what government can do” and some who have rebuilt don’t like looking out over tent cities.
Many on the hill say they understand the economic and climactic conditions have changed, making life in a place like Berry Creek harder to sustain.
“We didn’t bring this on ourselves,” said Meyer, the man who moved to Berry Creek to grow his own food. “People say, you shouldn’t be living there, and I say, well, 20 years ago this was a desirable place. But now, the climate is hotter, it’s drier, you can’t get home insurance, and those of us who are here are like, OK, now what are we going to do? This happened as a result of climate change, and now we are stuck.”
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After the fire burned down her home in Berry Creek, Teanea Bartley, 61, thought she was one of the lucky ones — with enough insurance to rebuild
Bartley and her husband, Raymond, 60, lost their 2,500-square-foot four-bedroom house. Their son and his girlfriend of 25 years lost a smaller house on the same land, where they lived with their five children.
Bartley said she hired a contractor with the insurance proceeds. But she said the contractor disappeared with their money, leaving them with a half-built shell of a house bristling with construction defects.
So instead of living in her newly designed home, now, Bartley and her husband are still trying to rebuild by themselves, because they are out of money to hire anyone else to finish the job. Her son and his family are camped out in a small trailer below the half-built house.
On an afternoon in late summer, the couple were blasting ‘70s rock while they each tackled different pieces of the construction.
“I haven’t given up yet and I don’t plan to,” said Teanea Bartley, as she stood on a stepladder painting a doorway. Her husband was somewhere inside, setting up scaffolding.
“We’ve always been mountain people,” she said. A devastating fire wouldn’t change that.
Still, she said, it has been an ordeal for her grandchildren, who have been sharing a trailer parked on her land for the last five years. The older ones, who are teenagers, have struggled particularly with the lack of their own space. The youngest, who was just 9 days old when the fire hit, “doesn’t know any different,” she said. “She’s always been in a trailer.”
A half a mile across the burn scar, Jackie McDonald has made a certain peace with the new normal, even though her new house is smaller than her old one and her community shrank as most of her friends moved away.
“At first, I wasn’t going to stay here,” she said. But her daughter urged them to reconsider, pointing out “I was born and raised here.”
So they rebuilt. They replanted a garden. They created a seating area around a burned-out tree. They built a deck facing a stand of trees that did not burn. Their daughter and her family, whose house also burned down, moved onto their land.
“I cried for the first two years,” McDonald said. But now, although she said she is still traumatized, she wouldn’t live anywhere else. “You heal your land, and your land heals you.”
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