The Psychological Toll Of Losing Your Home In A Fire
Ellen Snortland is a journalist who lives in Altadena, one of the communities ravaged by wildfires in Southern California this week. Though she still hasn’t been given the go-ahead from authorities to visit her home ― the Eaton fire is still only 3% contained ― she’s sure it isn’t standing.
“We know from videos that others have taken that our house is gone, gone, gone,” she told HuffPost. “It was built in 1924. I’m so sad she died on her 100th birthday.”
Four days in, the fires in Los Angeles County have killed at least 11 people and damaged or destroyed more than 12,000 structures.
Confident that her home is one of them, Snortland has been toggling between two emotions: immense gratitude that she was able to get out with her husband and three dogs, and sorrow for all that she’s lost.
Snortland had the forethought to grab a first edition by Amelia Earhart that has her signature in it, as well as some autographs by “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott and suffragists including Carrie Chapman Catt and Lucy Stone. But the fire destroyed countless other books and keepsakes.
Snortland wept when she thought of the generosity of people who’ve reached out. “I have friends who have already volunteered to don boots and masks to sift through the ashes,” she said.
At this point, she said, she really hasn’t thought about rebuilding, but given all she’s gone through, she admitted, “there’s a part of me that wants to buy an electric Airstream and hit the road.”
The flurry of emotions Snortland described ― grief intermingled with appreciation for her community and indecision about vague plans for the future ― is common for those who’ve lost their home in fires, said Darla Gale, a therapist and owner of Heartstrings Counseling in Loomis, California.
When the Camp fire broke out in Paradise, a couple hours north, in 2018, Gale volunteered her mental health services to people who’d lost their homes.
The fire in Paradise killed 85 people and scorched more than 150,000 acres, with an estimated 95% of the town’s structures turned to ashes. Many survivors had evacuated to nearby areas, so Gale began by visiting the hotels where they were staying to offer crisis intervention.
“When I first met with them, they were in shock, focused entirely on survival after losing everything they had,” she said. “To help with immediate needs, I visited a local dollar store and picked up essentials like toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and other basics. But right away, there was an overwhelming amount of grief and loss.”
As the days and months pass, Gale said emotions often evolve, but they don’t necessarily ease.
“Grief and depression tend to take center stage, fueled by the loss of physical space, irreplaceable memories and, in many cases, a sense of community,” she said.
All of those emotions are familiar to Nicole Barden, a resident of Sacramento, who lost her home in October 2017 in the Tubbs fire, which broke out in Santa Rosa, California, and claimed 22 lives.
At the time, Barden and her husband were renting a homein the Mayacamas mountain range, alongside a nature preserve. It was the first place they lived in that truly felt like a place of their own.
When the fires broke out, they had about an hour to pack their pets and the personal items that could fit in their two small cars.
“We evacuated to my parents house, and my mom tells me that we sat staring off into space for the whole first week,” she said. “We were paralyzed. We could not even remember to eat, to the point that we lost weight, though my mom was feeding us.”
The day after they evacuated, they found out that their house was gone through a neighbor: “We didn’t want to believe it, but could tell from the shaking in his voice that he wasn’t lying,” she said.
It would be a month before they were allowed to return to their home. When Barden finally made it back, most of what was left was ash. It was deeply disorienting, she said.
Some items, like her refrigerator, washing machine, bikes, wood-burning stove, and broken dishes, were identifiable enough. But it took a long time to distinguish the sewing machine and the pull-out couch in the piles of mangled metal, charred trees and other debris.
“The experience of losing your home is like a cleaver splitting life into two parts, the before and the after,” she said. “It changed my life and I feel like I lost years.”
It’s natural to feel anger after losing a home to a fire, even toward those offering well-meaning comments.
After the initial stage of shock and sadness, anger was what Jennifer Gibson felt the most when she lost her home in the 2018 Carr fire. At the time, it was one of the most devastating fires in California history, though it was quickly eclipsed by the Camp and Woolsey fires the same year.
“After we lost the house, I was angry that this all happened, and I hated and resented it every time someone asked me if I was going to rebuild,” Gibson told HuffPost.
“I could not go to the store or the post office without every single person asking me if I was going to rebuild,” she said. “It was like trying to be normal after something awful happens, and then every person you meet has to bring up your personal loss and then stress you out.”
Then, there was resentment toward people who’d brag that their house made it because they had “good defensive space” — even though Gibson was sure she had taken plenty of fire precautions.
“I also felt anger when people began pointing fingers about the cause of the fire, how it was managed, and all the mudslinging, which became political. I became hypersensitive to almost everything regarding the fire,” she said. “It all just felt so raw.”
After fires swept through the Hawaiian island of Maui in August 2023, survivors there also felt gaslit by those who were unaffected but full of positive thoughts.
“I remember people kept insisting that things would be OK to those who’d lost their homes,” said Lisa Grove, an owner of a consultancy firm who served as the interim executive director of Maui United Way.
Grove said that kind of toxic positivity was hard to absorb after the fires had killed more than 100 people and burned 6,500 acres of land, including much of historic Lahaina, a town that was once Hawaii’s royal capital.
Snortland is already familiar with such statements, though she recognizes them as clumsy attempts at consolation.
“People who say, ‘Oh, they are just things,’ — [that] is a reflection of them, not you,” she said. “They can’t deal with other people’s sadness, so try to minimize your sorrow. It’s OK to have feelings about things. Just smile and move on if people minimize you.”
No one wants to be told they should feel glad after losing so much. Naturally, though, many fire survivors also feel an overriding sense of gratitude.
“We felt sadness about the extensive losses — but mainly relief at being alive,” said Janet Stanley, a professor at the University of Melbourne who lost her home to wildfires in 1983, when two fires tore through southeastern Australia. The fires, known as the Ash Wednesday bushfires, killed 75 people and burned more than 500,000 acres.
“We were able to move into a rented house in the local township,” she said. “I felt grateful for the temporary dump we lived in, but I felt misplaced and the loss of familiarity and ‘my place.’”
The biggest challenge, Stanley said, was helping her 4-year-old son deal with his losses and fears for his safety.
“I remember him having a fear of steam coming out of the kettle, thinking it was smoke,” she said. “Luckily, the kindergarten teacher recognized that the children had to play firefighters with buckets of water — for 12 months — in order to work through trauma and feel in control.”
What people who’ve gone through wildfires want other disaster survivors to know
The fires in LA are ongoing, with much of Los Angeles County still under a red flag warning through Friday night. Though it’s very much early days and Angelenos are still taking stock of their losses, those we spoke to said there are lessons they’d impart to people in similar situations.
First, connect and lean into your neighbors, who know what you’re going through and may be able to pass on vital information, like organizations giving away baby supplies or blankets and jackets.
“Whether you choose to rebuild or not, you share a common experience with these people,” Gibson said. “Reaching out to your neighbors and keeping in touch with them over time has really helped me heal.”
Stanley agreed, and spoke to how powerful it can be to get involved in community aid efforts yourself, if and when you have the wherewithal for that.
To regain a sense of agency, she got involved in a local council’s post-fire reconstruction committee. There, she pushed for a large government grant to look at the impact of the fires on the local environment.
Second, don’t let your frustrations with the system get in the way of getting the resources you need, whether it’s answers from your insurance or applications for aid programs, Grove said.
“The paperwork is overwhelming and can sometimes require pieces of information that [survivors] just can’t access, like photos of vehicles, personal documents, including for their children, or other proof of loss,” she said. “This may be one of the hardest things you have to do.”
Given all those logistical challenges, it’s important to accept help in all forms.
“In Hawaii, there was also an ‘after you’ mentality — my problems aren’t as bad as others, so I should let them go first,” Grove said. “Sometimes people can feel a ‘gratitude deficit’ — that you can’t repay the kindness from friends and strangers. Take it, make a promise to pay it forward, and move on.”
After the Maui fires, Groves recalled, local experts would offer help with insurance paperwork, and nonprofits would set up bouncy houses and movies in the park for families with kids.
“There was even a ‘store’ that would make Costco jealous,” she said. “This was all done by community members coming together, maxing out their credit cards and giving all that they could. They were a true miracle.”
Barden still thinks back on the people who, in the wake of the Tubbs fire, put things out in front of their houses during a citywide “free garage sale,” or the friend who tracked down a replica of her favorite knit wool hat on eBay.
“At times it was hard to accept such kindness but it kept us going,” she said. “These moments really did make a difference and reminded us there was good in the world, despite the difficulties we were facing.”
