A Year After California Wildfires, Recovery Depends on Where People Live

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- After last year's wildfires destroyed 312 homes in the upscale Scripps Ranch area, displaced homeowners banded together. They negotiated with contractors as a group, figuring that would be the quickest, cheapest way to rebuild.

In Harrison Park, a mountain enclave 60 miles to the east, residents turned against each other after fire claimed 170 homes. As they sought building permits, they discovered their property lines weren't where they thought -- the result of poor land surveys performed decades ago.

The confusion has left the rebuilding effort there in turmoil.

``Neighbor has gone against neighbor, husband has gone against wife,'' said Neva Anderson, 83, who was told that her property line slices through the middle of her former home. Now she's living in a camper in her driveway, with no plans to rebuild.

The tales of Scripps Ranch and Harrison Park depict two extremes in the effort to recover from the firestorms of a year ago this month -- the most destructive wildfires in recent California history. In many ways, the pace of recovery has come down to where people live.

Urban neighborhoods are rebuilding more quickly, bolstered by higher household incomes, better roads and sewers, and tight-knit organizations that know how to pressure government officials and insurance companies.

Mountain villages have lagged, hampered by haphazard construction and a go-it-alone spirit that has left residents fending for themselves.

``Overall things seem to be moving a little bit faster than other disasters, but there's such a wide range,'' said George Kehrer, executive director of Community Assisting Recovery Inc., a nonprofit group that assists homeowners. ``A lot of it comes down to organization.''

The wildfires devastated enormous swaths of land across five Southern California counties. For nearly a week in late October 2003, flames swallowed neatly planned, urban subdivisions as well as hardscrabble villages and vacation getaways in the mountains.

When the smoke cleared, 24 people were dead, more than 3,600 homes had been destroyed and 750,000 acres had burned.

A year later, only 145 of the 2,516 homes lost in San Diego County -- the hardest hit area -- have been rebuilt. Construction permits have been issued for another 837 dwellings.

To make matters worse for some homeowners, a number of insurance companies pay living expenses for just a year after a disaster, leaving many people reaching into their pockets to cover rent.

Though the numbers may appear low, it's rare for anyone to rebuild in less than a year after a major disaster. California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said it took three to five years for most people to rebuild after the 1991 Oakland fire destroyed more than 3,000 homes.

Across Southern California, rebuilding efforts have been hampered by heavy demand for contractors and building supplies. Lumber prices have increased 8 percent since the summer and the cost of steel reinforcing bar has jumped 35 percent, according to Community Assisting Recovery.

Underinsurance has also been widespread. Adam Richardson, a technology consultant, put his Scripps Ranch home up for sale and is suing his insurance company for allegedly misleading him about the coverage he needed. Attorneys expect more than 300 such lawsuits related to the wildfires.

While some obstacles to rebuilding are common throughout the region, the differences between urban subdivisions and mountain villages may be just as important.

Consider Scripps Ranch, a community of 30,000 people in the heart of San Diego where homes sold for an average price of $758,529 in September.

Only six of the 312 homes lost to the fire have been rebuilt. But the city has issued permits for 251 more. These days, its winding streets are busy with construction crews and lined with partially built houses.

The Scripps Ranch Civic Association -- which pumps out 100-page monthly newsletters covering everything from the Girl Scouts to youth basketball games -- encouraged homeowners to negotiate with contractors as a group.

Eventually, 81 property owners settled on Stonefield Development, an Orange County builder.

Stonefield offered seven floor plans, priced from $93 to $98 a square foot -- about half of what many custom builders were asking. The first of the 81 homes will be finished in January, with the rest completed by April, said Julie Pack, vice president of sales and marketing.

Karen Reimus, whose home on a cul-de-sac was destroyed, said she had no choice but to go with Stonefield. Her insurance policy, purchased four months before the fire, left her $150,000 short of the cost of replacing exactly what she lost.

Scripps Ranch also turned up the heat on elected officials. About 300 people packed a school auditorium in April to tell Garamendi that he needed to get tougher with insurance companies.

Reimus, a lawyer, was one of seven Scripps Ranch homeowners who later went to Sacramento to promote Garamendi's legislative agenda. The insurance commissioner called last month to wish her a happy 38th birthday.

``Some other communities have modest organizations but nothing like Scripps Ranch.'' Garamendi said.

In mountain towns, however, homeowners are mostly on their own.

In Harrison Park, many lots are still littered with old stoves, broken concrete slabs and other debris from the fire. Many displaced homeowners are still living in campers; some are in tents.

Unlike Scripps Ranch -- where about 70 percent of the homes were built after 1980 and meticulously planned -- Harrison Park got its start in the 1920s and slowly became a hodgepodge of odd-shaped lots with no two houses looking alike. Quail, wild turkey and deer roamed the forested hills of pine, cedar, oak and manzanita trees.

The confusion over property lines brought reconstruction to a standstill after the fires. In May, county Supervisor Dianne Jacob split the community into a dozen sections and asked each to peacefully settle their differences. She's still waiting for their solutions.

Manuel Machado, 69, a retired building contractor who built his home himself on land that his wife's family has owned since 1926, is livid about one neighbor who claims 40 feet of what Machado thought was his land. He figures he's entitled to 20 feet of another neighbor's property but is reluctant to make a claim.

``Somewhere along the way, someone is going to get squeezed,'' he said. ``No one can stay where they are. They all have to move over and destroy one another.''

Harrison Park, like other mountain communities, has a host of other problems, from poor sewage to a remote location that takes construction crews time to reach. Many people simply don't have the money to rebuild.

With daytime temperatures already in the mid-40s, bad weather may slow construction even more during the winter.

Machado looked out the window of the $41,000 prefabricated home he bought with insurance money and counted 10 campers parked on a burned hillside.

``They're going to be very cold,'' he said. ``You have to go through an awful lot of propane to heat those up, and it's very depressing to stay in a little box like that.''

The end of living expenses from insurers poses another hardship.

Jim McDonald, 48, who lost his home in the San Diego County mountain community of Crest, will be leaving a furnished home this month with his wife and 11 children. They'll be moving into a place that rents for half as much as the $3,500 a month his insurance carrier had been paying.

McDonald, who runs the seafood department at a supermarket, doesn't expect his replacement home to be finished for several months. He carries a poem written by his 21-year-old daughter that reads, in part: ``Will our house ever be built?''