Photos: After the Thomas fire, an artist picks up the pieces

The Thomas fire swept through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, charring areas like this one in Upper Rincon Canyon. It is the state’s largest fire on record.

Fire-resistant cactuses and succulents helped beat back some of the flames that reached the 100-acre El Rancho Botello, the ranch just above Carpinteria that artist John Wullbrandt owns with partner Jean-Claude Rivalland.

John Wullbrandt sifts through the ashes of his painting archives. Although he and Rivalland saved the main ranch house, they lost the barn where Wullbrandt’s larger paintings were stored and two shipping containers filled with his life’s work.

Once the fire got close, Jean-Claude Rivalland, left, and John Wullbrandt had to hose down their outdoor animals, including two donkeys -- El Paso, foreground, and Paris. The animals survived.

“We were told to evacuate,” the painter John Wullbrandt says of being warned that the Thomas fire was heading for his Carpinteria ranch. “But Jean-Claude and I chose to stay with the animals and ride it out.”

Once the Thomas fire had scorched the needles off the ranch’s cactuses, the cows were able to easily enjoy the tasty treats. The idea to plant fire-resistant succulents at El Rancho Botello proved a fortunate one.

Jean-Claude Rivalland wears a mask as a precaution against the smoke and ash still swirling in the Carpinteria area. Recalling the night he and his partner sprayed down their house and animals as the Thomas fire approached, Rivalland said, “At times, I didn’t think we would survive.”

Rivalland surveys scorched hills on his way to check on El Rancho Botello’s water tanks.

Rivalland hugs one of El Rancho Botello’s three 5,000-gallon water tanks. But for the water from these tanks, he and partner John Wullbrandt would not have saved their ranch, their animals and themselves.

With Wullbrandt and Rivalland’s ranch house in the distance, charred brush stands as ghostly sculpture left behind by the fire.

A 2007 photo shows the barn where Wullbrandt’s larger paintings were kept. These paintings found homes before the Thomas fire hit, but the structure was reduced to a pile of charred metal roofing and ash.

Carpinteria painter Wullbrandt, photographed after the Thomas fire, says that with loss will come new life for the landscape. “It really will be like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes, the rebirth,” he says. “It will be so much more beautiful once it starts to rejuvenate. We’re gonna see wildflowers we haven’t seen in 100 years.”