Valley Fire burns through students’ homes

By Anna Gao,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

Recent wildfires raging through California have impacted many lives, including those of some Davis High students.

Junior Lily Brown and her family are from Middletown, a small town in Lake County affected by the Valley Fire burning through Lake, Napa and Sonoma Counties.

Brown is a new student to the Davis Joint Unified School District and has already had to miss school due to the wildfire.

“School has been a little overwhelming after being gone for a week. Since I have so much work to make up I can’t really do the things I like to do,” Brown said.

Due to the recent wildfire, Brown is not sure if she will be staying at DHS.

“I’m considering independent study because I might be needed up [in Middletown] to rebuild or clean,” she said.

Her home was completely destroyed, along with her family members’ possessions.

“My whole family’s stuff was still there. I was basically the only one who was completely moved in to Davis,” Brown said. “All their clothes, all my sisters’ toys and stuff [were destroyed]. My sisters were still going to school in Middletown and they were in the process of possibly transferring here so all their stuff was there.”

“We have everything we need now and my family is good. It’s just a shock,” she added. Brown’s family stayed at an evacuation center in Calistoga for a week before moving to stay at a family friend’s house in Middletown.

30 miles away from Middletown is another small town in Lake County called Kelseyville, where sophomore Callista Rooks’ mother and two younger sisters live.

Rooks’ family members, along with many others in their area, were evacuated from their homes because of the Valley Fire.

Rooks is working hard to cope, but says it isn’t easy to deal with her first year of high school as well as the wildfire burning through her and her family’s lives.

“My teachers have been very supportive and kind; it’s very appreciated. I’ve been keeping up to date on it to make sure my mom and baby sisters are safe,” Rooks said.

Rooks struggled the most with overcoming the memories from the wildfire.

“I couldn’t sleep for a couple days after because there were awful nightmares. For the first week, I cried myself to sleep and then I would wake up only to cry myself to sleep again,” Rooks said.

Rooks recounted some of the horrifying images that plagued her: “People were getting trapped in their home; others went missing. Some people are still missing. It was horrifying.”

“It was so bad people didn’t know what [buildings were still standing]. Cob is gone; it’s dust. Middletown is gone,” she said. “People said there were dead horses scattered around. People [had] paint chipped off their car because they had to drive through the fire to survive. It was literally a sort of hell.”

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Valley Fire started on Sept. 12 and is now ranked in the top three most destructive wildfires in California’s history. It has burned about 76,000 acres so far.

Rooks and her mother volunteered with the Red Cross to help the community piece itself back together. Their jobs included registration and check-in, comforting people and providing cots for people to sleep in. At check-in, there was a list that people looked at to find missing family members or friends.

“Being personal with them helped them remember that they were alive. Many people who came through the shelter were in shock and having someone give them a hug really made a difference,” Rooks said.