Sonoma County officials lend experienced hand amid Camp fire response

As the deadly Camp fire tore through Butte County last month, Santa Rosa and Sonoma County officials quickly answered calls for help, heading to impacted communities to share hard-earned wisdom about how to respond to an unprecedented disaster.

During its 17-day onslaught, the Camp fire destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and claimed at least 88 lives, surpassing the Tubbs fire as the most destructive blaze in state history. In the past 13 months, local officials have been forced to craft a new playbook for recovering from a catastrophic firestorm, in part using lessons from other areas impacted by disaster.

So when the Camp fire hit, they were eager to offer support.

About 20 employees from city and county departments ranging from animal control to emergency services were deployed to Paradise and Butte County through a statewide mutual aid system for management and technical specialists. Assistance was provided through the fire’s duration, with costs reimbursable through the mutual ?aid system.

Santa Rosa and Sonoma County issued a similar call for help in October 2017, when fires claimed more than 6,200 homes in the North Bay.

“We’ve gone through this experience. We have a bunch of lessons we’ve learned that we could use to help guide them,” said county spokeswoman Briana Khan, who functioned as Paradise’s lead public information officer for more than a week. “We know how valuable that is. We know how valuable it was when mutual aid came to assist us.”

Paradise looked like a “war zone,” with buildings leveled, downed power lines and a charred school bus in the roadway, said Khan, who helped organize a town hall and facilitate public communications. It was “heartbreaking,” and not?unlike the apocalyptic scenes from Sonoma County, she said.

Though many lost homes, Paradise employees worked through the fire, said Town Manager Lauren Gill. Help came “when we needed it the most,” she said.

In the first week of the fire, search and rescue volunteers and forensic experts from Sonoma and Mendocino counties were among those who joined the somber hunt at burned-out homesites for signs of the hundreds of people reported missing in the fire.

“The people that came in from other areas, whether it was Sonoma, Napa or Santa Rosa … were amazing,” Gill said. “They were professional, they knew what they were doing, and they came into the emergency operations center and hit the ground running.

They supported us not only with the emergency at hand, but also in lending great emotional support for employees.”

Santa Rosa Assistant City Manager David Guhin stepped in to help the town’s administrators, including his counterpart in Paradise, whose home burned, he said.

Guhin said the town is faced with many of the same issues as Santa Rosa in 2017: surveying water systems and storm drain pipes, coordinating with FEMA and state emergency workers and mapping out rebuilding.

“It’s only been a year - the similarity of the sky, the smell ... everything came right back to what we experienced just a year ago,” he said. “It was so fresh in our minds what people did for us. All we could think about is how do we give that back.”

Santa Rosa spokeswoman Adriane Mertens left a trove of recovery-related materials, including press releases and fact sheets for reuse.

“It felt good to be able to be there to offer support to their team” said Mertens, who returned Tuesday after a stint as a PIO for Butte County. “I’ve been in their shoes. I know how stressful and hard it can be.”

Michael Gossman, a deputy administrator who heads Sonoma County’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, helped establish a local assistance center at a vacant Sears store, much like he did last year in downtown Santa Rosa. He offered advice: How to adequately staff the one-stop assistance shop, how to get started with the daunting task of debris cleanup, and how to prepare for rains that would batter fire-scarred landscape.

Gossman hopes to work with Butte County and other fire-impacted regions to advocate for policy changes and funding to deal with catastrophic natural disasters and their lasting impacts.

In coming months,those affected by the Camp fire will be faced with many of the same decisions on rebuilding as fire survivors in Sonoma County.

“We are a strong community,” said Gill, the Paradise town manager. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who are very hopeful and excited to get back and rebuild.”

Jeff Okrepkie, a Santa Rosa fire survivor who founded the neighborhood group Coffey Strong, plans to hold a community meeting in Chico early this month.

Okrepkie and about five others from his group will offer advice on everything from coping with emotions to navigating the complex rebuilding process.

He has traveled to Redding after the Carr fire to meet with survivors, and he hopes he can use his neighborhoods’ struggle for good.

“You see that happen, you know what they’re going through and you know that you have the information that could help,” he said. “It’s almost like there’s no choice. You’ve got to do something to help.”

You can reach Staff Writer Hannah Beausang at 707-521-5214 or hannah.beausang@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @hannahbeausang.