2 weeks ago
14
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
The Tubbs fire in 2017 wiped out more than 5,000 structures in a Northern California county. Homeowners faced challenges, but hundreds were able to rebuild within two years.
By Heather Knight and Conor Dougherty
Heather Knight visited several residents in Santa Rosa, Calif., who lost their homes in the Tubbs fire in 2017. Conor Dougherty covers California’s housing crisis and reported from Los Angeles.
Jan. 19, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
Donna and Bob Williamson call the strange souvenirs pulled from the ashes of their home their Museum of Misery.
There is the green wine bottle that melted, its glass neck drooping, that looks like it was pulled from a Salvador Dalí painting. Silver forks that fused into a thick, lumpy utensil, its prongs fanning out like a porcupine’s needles.
A platter they received on their wedding day that read, “For better or for worse.” Just a shard survived. The piece that says, “For better.”
The collection sits in cardboard boxes at the back of the garage off their new house in Santa Rosa, Calif., a city of about 175,000 people in the Sonoma wine country.
The Williamsons know the pain and uncertainty being experienced by those who lost their homes in the Los Angeles fires — of wondering how they will ever rebuild and recoup the treasures they lost. Building anything in California is expensive and bureaucratic even in the best of times, and now thousands of residents in Southern California will be vying for the same permits, labor and materials at once.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” Mrs. Williamson said. “But it’s going to be a long tunnel.”
