Rekindling Hope : A Year After Deadly Fire, Life Is Returning to Oakland Hills

OAKLAND —  When the devastating killer firestorm swept through the Oakland hills a year ago today, artist Darrell Hunger’s house burned to the ground, destroying his life’s work.

Now, out of the rubble of the blaze, Hunger is creating new sculpture using the remnants of his ruined art, his melted household possessions and fused fragments of the house itself.

“I call it resurrected art,” he said. “For me, healing was to get on with being an artist again.”

Symbolizing the rebirth of the burned-out community, Hunger and more than 300 other artists are displaying their work as part of the Fire Art Project, a commemoration of the wildfire that killed 25 people and destroyed more than 2,500 homes.

For the artists who lost their homes, it is proof of the human power to create when everything around them has been destroyed.

Throughout the burned area, where many of the elite of Oakland and Berkeley once lived, residents are still struggling to recover from the devastation, rebuild their homes and overcome the emotional trauma of their losses.

Accompanied by the constant noise of heavy equipment and hammering, hundreds of houses are going up across the blackened hills. The streets are alive with contractors and carpenters; new growth sprouts from the charred redwood and eucalyptus trees.

“The devastation and the loss of life is traumatic, but we have attempted to make the best of a bad situation,” said Mayor Elihu Harris. “People are still very positive about their neighborhood, their city and the lifestyle they hope to resume with their reconstructed houses.”

But for some people, the anniversary of the fire only accentuates the destruction, bringing on new nightmares and visions of the day they fled in such a rush that they left everything behind.

Every day now, James and Dorothy Jee drive to the Hiller Highlands area of Oakland to oversee rebuilding of their house. Soon they will have a beautiful home again with a spectacular view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

But Dorothy Jee said she often sees the image of a woman on fire running down their street. And she laments the loss of family treasures, the poetry and short stories her children wrote, the bits she had saved from their first blankets.

“It’s part of our happiness that went up in smoke,” she said with tears in her eyes. “The memories are so precious. People say we’ll have a lovely home, but my heart is not there. I don’t have anything to put into it.”

The cause of the fire is still not known, and probably never will be, fire officials say. The blaze, which started in a canyon high in the hills, was all but put out by firefighters on the day before the firestorm.

But the next day, as unusually hot dry winds blew from the east, embers reignited and spread the fire so quickly that firefighters were unable to stop the flames. Residents raced to leave the area but some were trapped on the narrow winding roads and died.

Entire neighborhoods of expensive homes and historic architecture, of luxury condos with panoramic views, were wiped out within hours. Professors, professional athletes, doctors, lawyers, corporate executives, elected officials, writers and artists were among those who lost their homes.

For many who still live in the Oakland hills, the feelings of panic and fear were rekindled 10 days ago when one of the first homes to be rebuilt burned down. Attorney Mark Topel lost the hand-crafted replica of his destroyed 1920s home days before he planned to move in.

“I’m so angry I can’t even see straight,” said Topel, who charges the fire was started by negligent workers. “I get up around 4 in the morning and start hurling things. It’s robbed me of my sense of joy. I hate being filled with anger but I can’t help it.”

As he raced from his temporary lodgings to the fire, Topel said it immediately brought back the memories of a year ago: the same “sick orange glow,” the wall of flames coming toward him.

“This house was an absolute architectural gem,” he said. “It was a symbol that the neighborhood was going to come back.”

The loss of Topel’s house, the fire anniversary, hot October weather and recent forest fires in the Sierra Nevada have contributed to a resurgence of jittery nerves among hill residents who lived through the firestorm, said Berkeley psychologist Alan Siegel.

For some, nightmares of flames and disaster are more intense now than they were last year, said Siegel, who has been studying the dreams of survivors. And in certain cases, people whose houses were spared are suffering more emotional trauma than neighbors who were burned out.

“They may be really bothered, but not feel they have a right to be upset,” he explained.

Construction is under way on more than 850 houses in the fire area. More than 50 homes have been finished. Controversy has erupted in some communities as residents use their insurance settlements to build bigger houses, blocking the views of their neighbors.

Over the past year, the city of Oakland has come under intense criticism for its handling of the fire, including its failure to put out the initial grass fire before the winds picked up.

In response, the city has taken steps to prevent a similar firestorm, installing infrared fire scanning equipment in police helicopters, setting up weather stations in the hills and improving training for firefighters. The city also has cracked down on brush clearance, issuing citations to more than 3,000 people.

“People have a right to criticize,” Mayor Harris said. “Many of the criticisms are not only well-founded but constructive. But I want people to know we are learning from those criticisms.”