Hello Friends,
As we write this note to you the CZU complex fire has burned over 80,000 acres of land and displaced over 100,000 people. It is only one of the large fires still burning, which have now collectively consumed over 1.5 million acres of land. Having fought this fire at the farm and watched up close what a fire can do to a cherished landscape, neighbors’ homes, and families’ farms, the scale of the fires is frankly inconceivable and devastating. The phrase “my heart goes out to people experiencing this loss” does not even begin to capture the weight of waking up and having not just lost something and someone, as many have, but also the place, purpose, and the most intimate geography of one’s lived history and future dreams.
The sadness is deep and the loss heavy, but there are also beautiful things. One of them is the many thoughtful and caring emails from so many people since the fire started. It is beautiful how much this place has meant to so many people. Many have wanted to know what happened during the fire and what was most affected. So here is a brief description of the events around the fire and some of the effects on RSV and our community.
We knew after the intense lightning storm in the early hours of August 16th that there would be fires, but we were hopeful that any small fires that developed would dwindle out because of the light rain and high humidity, and because it was early in the fire season. But by Tuesday, as things dried out and the winds started, we knew that fire at the farm was a possibility. We moved all the tractors and equipment to the front field near where tree sales are, and worked until 4am as we watched the fire storm approach the farm.
We thought Wednesday morning that the fire might pass us to the east, staying in the densely unburnt forest at the back of the farm and in the hills behind us. But later that morning we saw a much larger fire storm headed our way and we started watering around the barn and the orchards and the perimeter of the farm.
At this point a Cal Fire crew came into the farm but determined that there was little they could do because of the steep topography of the back of the farm and because they were stretched too thin to fight the fire (there were only 3 available engines for the area from Pescadero to Santa Cruz at this point). They encouraged us to try to mitigate the impending damage with the sprinklers and hoses, and by cutting fire lines with our small bulldozer.
So we decided to focus on the heart of the farm, the barn and the sheds where our tools and remaining equipment were stored, the orchards, the gardens where we grow produce for food banks, and the Christmas trees, our bread and butter. We did that all day until and as the fire burned down into the farm that evening. But we kept losing ground, losing almost all of the forest at the back of the farm and then our cabin and eventually our two sheds that house most of our small tools and woodshop.
At 9 pm a Cal Fire Patrol car came racing into the farm and said that the farm would be fully engulfed in a matter of an hour. The power went off at this point so we lost our pump but we still had some water pressure through gravity, so we put all the water we could around the barn, the orchards, and our small remaining trailer at the back of the farm, and then left as the area was fully engulfed in smoke and flames.
We spent the night watching with our neighbors from a plowed field on a hill across Hwy 1, as our farms burned. As we got updates from Cal Fire and each other, we rushed into areas that were not full burned and helped keep water pumps going and cutting new fire lines with our bulldozer where it was possible on neighbors’ farms and fields.
The next day as the fires died down we walked the farm and took stock of what was lost and what made it. We were heartbroken by what was lost and by the extent that the material forms, dwellings, crops, workshops, favorite trees, secluded groves, and the products of so much love and labor, could be so fully decimated so quickly and completely. We lost the cabin, the two sheds, lots of our tools and small equipment and trailers, the pump station. We lost our electrical and irrigation infrastructure, including the electrical panels and tons of PVC pipe. We lost almost all of our forested land at the back of the property.
We continued to fight fires for the next two days as hot spots took two of our neighbors’ houses. And we spent hours and hours cutting lines around their structures and putting out hot spots on ours. Unfortunately, while putting out one of these hot spots, Peter fell and badly burned his hands and had to spend 4 days in a burn unit. He will have to have surgery to graft skin back on his hands. He is incredibly upbeat as always, and continues to be the heart and soul of our family; we are all devastated by his pain and with his injury.
Peter’s injury and the loss of much of the farm has been hard on the family and our community. But we were able to save many important parts of the farm. With incredible luck and the water and our fire lines and the work of all those who were able to get through the road blocks on Hwy 1, our small home trailer and the barn survived the fire storms. The fruit orchard is mostly ok, in fact the Gravenstein apples taste great this year. The produce garden is also ok, and though we lost most of the Christmas trees on top of the hill, the ones down below did not get burned at all.
As a result we are committed to trying to recover from this devastating fire, and to repair and rebuild in time to open this year for Christmas tree season. With some extra luck, we might even be able to invite folks to come harvest sunflowers and pumpkins at our first-ever Fall Fest in October.
The hardest part of this harrowing experience, along with Pete’s injury, was breaking the news to our parents, who are now in their 90’s and who invested their whole lives in building this beautiful farm and this family and community. We waited until the fire was over to tell them what had happened, so they would not feel the anxiety of the possibility of losing everything. As we told them about how the fire affected each area of the farm, the memories of friends and family flooded back. We talked of the intertwined past of people they love and how memories of the work and landscape are woven together.
We talked of them first finding the farm and our mom playing on the grassy hill with the oldest of us, now ancient, then mere toddlers. They remembered the building of the first shed, on their own with found lumber and an old chainsaw and little skill back in 1966. We recalled the place where Mary found and made a playmate out of a dead rat. We talked about working on the cabin with Mugs, Dave, and Sue and many others, and of building the second shed with William and Ann. We remembered hanging the first swings and the joy it brought all of us and Jake’s ongoing propensity to hang them everywhere. They recalled working on the first garden together, the productivity of the raspberries back then and then their joy in watching Pete and Marion expand and improve it. They spoke of their pleasure again seeing Ann, Jake, Mary, MB, Michael, Mara, and many more fighting valiantly against the ‘Pinche Topos’ (gophers) and the damned pigweed to grow some of the best produce we ever have.
We talked of people who have worked with us for decades, and the endless number of stale peanut butter sandwiches (our dad’s specialty) that fueled Rich, Pablo, Andrew, Tyson, Frank, Anne, Paul, Olivier, Binny, Jose, Sarah, Tim, Kent, Dave, Casey and so many more as they planted, watered, trimmed, hoed, cut, sold, wrapped, and tied Christmas trees on top of customers’ cars. They talked about the people who have come to our farm now for generations of their own families, despite the times when we have grown trees only Charlie Brown could love. They talked about how the fire came near where Boko ran over 6 trees while learning to drive, how close it came to trees planted at weddings, how it scarred areas where certain birthdays, Easter egg hunts, and tenure parties had taken place, and how it had burned over the graves of buried family dogs and the remnants of failed projects.
As they spoke, even in their sadness, they laughed at endless mistakes we made planting the wrong trees, the catawampus buildings that showed the slow learning curve of our building skills. We talked about the place where Casey, who is easily the most mechanically skilled of us on the farm, first used a chainsaw. We realized that even more now as their memories are less clear, the best way to talk of a physical location on the farm was with the memories of the people, events, and projects who had lived on it and made it with them over 55 years. The farm’s landscape has been the living manifestation of this labor and love. With the loss of the landscape is the loss of the physical form of these relations.
They took the news and photos in stride, even though they were deeply sad, worried for Peter’s pain, and feeling of loss of many little things, favorite tools, and favorite sacred places, which they will not likely see replaced or fully regenerated. As always, they were worried for us and how to rebuild the farm and make it sustainable.
Just before leaving our dad asked about one of the areas behind the barn that was littered with the wood scraps of old failed projects and surrounded with such a dense layer of poison oak, nettles and blackberries bushes as to make it impenetrable. We told them that it was totally burned and he smiled and said “wow, just think of the possibilities.”
There is no minimizing the loss, no making it all ok by covering the sadness that they and we feel, but there are some really good things. We are closer to our neighbors than ever before, we are more united as a family and a community realizing what the place means to our generation and the next one – Willa, Jose, Ben, Jon-Jon, Sasha, Maia, Annika, Sara, Emily, Jenny, Peter, Alicia, and Ruby. Some of the next generation already help run the farm, some were around to help fight the fire, and others have pledged to be involved in building new memories and futures on it.
The core of the farm was saved, the community is even stronger, and because of this, we are determined to try our hardest to rebuild and run and hopefully grow the farm that our parents started over 50 years ago.
We thank you all for your love and support,
The RSV Family
Read the RSV Fire Update #2 - 9/25/20
