![\"\"](\"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/laufer-kerryann420x279-150x150.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe Event: <\/strong>The Kincade Fire sparked in late October 2019. It spread from a power plant area in northern Sonoma County, California, to homes and businesses in other parts of Sonoma, mainly to the towns of Windsor and Healdsburg, and to the northeast part of Santa Rosa. It burned 77,758 acres of land and destroyed 374 buildings. The fire prompted the largest mass evacuation \u2014 200,000 people \u2014 in county history. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The alert to evacuate came<\/strong> around 10:30 a.m. KerryAnn Laufer didn\u2019t have long. \u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve got five and half hours,\u2019\u201d says the locally known textile and pottery artist. She made some tough choices: two suitcases; some documents; her two, 40-year-old Amazon parrots; and her 14-year-old cat. \u201cI wish now, that I took some pictures, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n As she left her house in Healdsburg to drive 15 miles to a friend\u2019s house in Santa Rosa, the fires were still quite far \u2014 about 20 miles away\u2014 and the winds hadn\u2019t picked up yet. The sky was bright blue and clear, and there was no fire or smoke in sight. Laufer dropped off her parrots and her cat at a veterinary hospital on the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laufer felt relatively calm on her drive. After all, this was the third time that she\u2019d had to run to safety from a local wildfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt looked like a beautiful day, and everybody was leaving in such a calm and orderly way,\u201c Laufer says. \u201cThe emergency personnel were so ahead of everything. Everybody was prepared to follow the fire precautions. Our community experienced the Tubbs Fire only two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After six days away and after the fire was fully tamed, Laufer still didn\u2019t know what happened to her house. She tried to pay a visit \u2014 some days even twice \u2014 but National Guard troops cut Laufer\u2019s trips off a mile from her house. Meanwhile, news reports said over 300 structures had been lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was really worried, but I had lots of respect for the guards. They were keeping us safe,\u201d Laufer says. \u201c That Thursday, I came by a second time. A National Guardsman recognized me and felt sorry for me. He instructed two sheriffs to escort me to my house, and finally I was able to find out what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A moment later, as Laufer drove up with the sheriffs by her side, her heart stopped. The only thing standing on Laufer\u2019s property was her fireplace. At that moment, her world went silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe fire had jumped, so some houses on my street burned and some didn\u2019t,\u201d Laufer says. \u201cA couple of duplexes across the road suffered severe smoke damage, but the house across from me did burn. My shed was saved, so were all my oak trees, but everything else was gone \u2013 all my art work and all the tools burned in the garage, which I had turned into an art studio.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Laufer stays in a temporary apartment about 10 miles from her property, where once stood her beloved two-story house, which held 19 years\u2019 worth of memories, as well as her life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was looking for a place to rent,\u201d she says. \u201cI found a landlady who wanted to help somebody who had been affected by the fire. There was no application, and she wanted to make renting easy for me. I did have to put a deposit down. I am very privileged and fortunate to have a good insurance and that helps a lot. I wish I had just taken more artwork with me. The only thing I have now is a quilt that I made for my mother who has since passed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mother Nature has caused even more unease for Laufer lately. It\u2019s the rainy season, and that\u2019s caused Laufer to worry about devastating mudslides around her property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have my normal sleep, but I have lots of anxiety right now,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like I haven\u2019t even had time to wrap my head around what happened, and I\u2019m concerned that, if it rains, my property will get worse before it gets better. I had a wooden wall around my property, and it burned. Today, I thought to sew new curtains for my apartment, but then I realized I don\u2019t have my sewing machine. Neither do I have fabric. Oh, I had beautiful fabrics in my studio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laufer says that whenever she starts to fall into a painful sadness over the lost objects, like her valuable antique European pottery collection or her jewelry, she shifts her thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI \u2018m 62-years old and I reconcile my own participation in this consumer culture that we all are in,\u201d she says. \u201cIn the past, I was also a victim of burglaries, so over the years I\u2019ve worked on spiritually not being so attached to my things. I seem to have a better reaction to losing my things than lot of other fire survivors. What I am really grieving is being able to go home and be in my space. I\u2019m not really grieving my stuff. I also suffer from too much information. It is a lot to deal with emotionally: insurance, taxes, replacing documents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, Laufer is also unsure if she will stay in the area or move away. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I am going to rebuild. I am in this in-between situation,\u201d she says. \u201cSomething has definitely shifted in me, the way I look at things. I became vegan five years ago, especially to make a personal impact on planet by changing my consumer habits. I\u2019ve marched and become an advocate, but being vegan doesn\u2019t save my ass when fires come through. I need to really look at where I am in my life and look at the situation California is in and the world is in. And I cannot look at it just as my problem. I am one of the people affected by it, but it is not just my problem. We need more immediate action and to stop kidding ourselves that everything is good. Because it isn\u2019t. The Federal government is blaming California, and we have all this toxic rhetoric going on. We all are on the leading edge of becoming climate refugees. I wish I knew what to do, but I don\u2019t because I am still traumatized by all the changes in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Kirsi-M. Hayrinen-Beschloss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voices from the Future | KerryAnn Laufer The Furious Fire The Event: The Kincade Fire sparked in late October 2019. 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