Sonoma Valley soundscape artist Bernie Krause searching for refuge after Nuns fire

Had he not been fleeing for his life, Bernie Krause might have brought out his audio equipment to record the sound of a nighttime inferno roaring through the forest outside his Glen Ellen home.

In his pioneering career as a soundscape ecologist, Krause, 79, has been on every continent recording wilderness and threats to its existence.

Over 50 years, he has amassed an audio archive of more than 5,000 habitats and 15,000 species and written seven books, earning Krause acclaim from scientists and artists, as well as invitations to give a TED talk and numerous presentations before prestigious academic bodies.

Krause stored the original recordings - some 500 reel-to-reel tapes in all - in his garage studio, thinking it as safe a place as any to protect his life’s work. The 10-acre retreat, which Krause shared with his wife and business partner, Kat, was the headquarters of Wild Sanctuary, a groundbreaking enterprise Krause started in 1968 with the novel goal of recording nature for entertainment purposes and as a quantitative means of assessing the long-term health of habitats.

But Wild Sanctuary lay in the path of an explosive October wildfire that decimated neighborhoods across Sonoma Valley, claiming more than 400 homes. The Nuns fire sent Bernie and Kat Krause fleeing into the night with only what they wore. It leveled their 3,000 square-foot, rammed-earth home, and along with it, the studio and Krause’s prized audio archive, as well as detailed field journals, photos, reference books and nearly 70 years of correspondence.

Losing all of their possessions was one thing. But equally disturbing for the Krauses was their newfound sense that no place provides refuge from what they perceive as a world dangerously on the precipice of irreversible environmental collapse.

“We stared global warming in its malevolent eye,” Bernie Krause said.

Standing in what used to be his living room on a recent morning, hazy sunlight reflecting off his yellow-tinted glasses, Krause noted the silence blanketing the fire-scarred hillside.

Prior to the fires, the couple reveled in nature’s daily orchestra at Wild Sanctuary, with regular visits from foxes, a bobcat, coyotes and even a mountain lion who occasionally hung out in a tree near the driveway, as if he were a family pet. The property, set above Henno Road, is at the crossroads of a major wildlife corridor spanning Sonoma Mountain and the Mayacamas range.

On this morning, the only sound was of a worker operating a power tool at a home higher on the ridge. All that remains of the Krauses’ home is the foundation. Their garden is dead and a chain-link fence surrounds a drained pool. A patio set singed by flames beckons, only now there is no one to enjoy the sweeping views of Sonoma Valley below.

“This used to be so alive,” Krause said.

Like thousands across Northern California affected by the October firestorms, Krause and his wife are trapped in a bewildering diaspora, shuttling from one rented home to the next while they try to move forward with their lives.

The Krauses face a particular dilemma. With Bernie approaching his 80s and Kat in her late 60s, they wonder whether they should rebuild in Glen Ellen or cut their losses and downsize, perhaps to a place less prone to natural disaster. At the same time, they worry about preserving Wild Sanctuary’s legacy and the vision for making soundscape ecology part of mainstream environmental science.

“He doesn’t want to be picking out cupboard door handles when he’s 83,” Kat said of her husband. “This time of our lives is very precious to us. We’re still healthy. We’re still mobile.”

“Our preference is to rebuild,” Bernie said. “We haven’t been able to find a place and the property is still viable. There’s water. There’s electricity.”

Prior to the fires, the couple had big plans for celebrating the 50th anniversary of Wild Sanctuary this year, including retrospectives of Krause’s work. His recordings have been featured in a variety of mediums, from movie scores and Nature Company soundtracks, to museum exhibits and art installations.

The recordings reflect 1,315 different types of habitats, from temperate forests and equatorial rain forest, to mangrove swamps and coral reefs. He’s also recorded in the Arctic tundra and the high desert.

Many of the audio tapes, recorded over a span of years, track disturbing changes in the pitches of animal voices because of myriad threats. Worse is when there is no sound at all, signaling an ecosystem’s demise, he said. In his book, “Voices of the Wild: Animal Songs, Human Din, and the Call to Save Natural Soundscapes,” Krause writes that more than half of his audio data “comes from sites (now) so badly compromised by various forms of human intervention that the habitats are either altogether silent or the soundscapes can no longer be heard in any of their original forms.”

Krause’s annual springtime recordings at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park near Kenwood offer a compelling audio portrait of California’s recent 5-year drought. Early recordings capture birdsong and the sound of a bubbling stream. By 2015, little is audible.

Fortunately, Krause made digital copies of his nature recordings and stored them away from the Glen Ellen house. But he laments no longer having the originals, which he hoped would make their way to an institution of higher learning for safekeeping and study.

Krause also lost to the fires a guitar he played at Carnegie Hall as a member of The Weavers, Pete Seeger’s folk band. Prior to his work in soundscapes, he helped pioneer the use of synthesizers and was a sought-after session artist who worked with the likes of the Byrds, the Rolling Stones and the Doors.

After the fires, Peter Gabriel sent him speakers to replace a pair he lost in the blaze.

The Krauses were home the evening of Sunday, Oct. 8 last year when a foreboding wind whipped through their forest. Bernie went to bed but Kat, who was recovering from knee replacement surgery, stayed up, listening to the haunting sound.

Then the phone rang. A friend was calling to warn the couple about fires that had broken out across Wine Country. Summoned by his wife, Bernie got out of bed and turned on the TV. Gazing through the couple’s glass-paned front door, he thought he caught the reflection of flames from the television newscast. Looking again, he realized to his horror the hillside outside the home was ablaze.

The couple had barely enough time to get in their Subaru and race away as a wave of flames cascaded over the narrow single-lane road. According to a gauge that survived the blaze, the winds were gusting above 80 mph, equal to a Category 1 hurricane.

The Krauses had no time to grab anything beyond what they were wearing and Kat’s pain medication. To their heartbreak, their two cats perished in the blaze. The couple found shelter that night at a friend’s home in Mill Valley. They’ve since lived in seven different locations, including their current abode, a rented home on the outskirts of Sonoma.

On a recent afternoon at the house, Krause held what remains of the couple’s other car - a molten piece of aluminum not much larger than a deck of playing cards.

The Krauses are convinced the intensity and rapid spread of the 2017 fires reflects global warming trends surfacing around the world. When the couple purchased their house in 1993, their insurance company initially refused them fire coverage on the grounds that rammed-earth materials can’t burn. In other words, they didn’t need coverage.

They all know better now. What little fire insurance the couple eventually obtained on the home is barely enough to cover a third of their loss. The insurance company has notified them their rent is paid through July. After that they are on their own.

The couple is among those suing Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for damages related to the fires, and they are still finalizing terms with their insurance company over losses.

But nothing can replace Bernie’s original recorded masterpieces or the couple’s lost sense of safety. And even if they choose to re-inhabit their Wild Sanctuary, Kat said, it won’t be like going home.

“It would be like going forward in a whole new place,” she said.