Los Alamos, NM

The city of Los Alamos, N.M., faced the daunting task of rebuilding after a wildfire swept through two years ago, leaving more than 400 homeless and destroying 280 structures. But the town of 11,909 has risen from the ashes as fire victims have rebuilt, forging new friendships and finding new directions for their lives in the aftermath.

Take Marvel Harrison and her husband, Terry Kellogg. Fire destroyed the rental house where they had stored the inventory of their small publishing and speaking business while they were moving into a new home.

But they opened their new (and undamaged) house to neighbors whose homes had been badly damaged or destroyed and enjoyed the company so much they decided to open a bed and breakfast.

“We liked having people around,” she says. They also didn’t want to be on the road with the speaking engagements required by their former business, since they had adopted a little girl named Sopahn from Cambodia.

“Doing the inn has been a way for us to put our creative juices to work,” Harrison says, in this case by building a traditional Mexican-style adobe rock guesthouse with flagstone floors for the new inn. The Pueblo Canyon Inn—which is fireproof—opened this fall. And Sopahn is a happy, vivacious 4-year-old.

“We’ve gone from perils to pearls,” Harrison says.

Harrison and Kellogg are just two of the many Los Alamos residents who have built something positive from the destruction of the Cerro Grande fire in May 2000. The fire, set as a controlled burn by the National Park Service to reduce overgrown brush, blazed out of control, causing damage of up to $1 billion. Amazingly, no one was injured.

People throughout the community benefited from, or performed, random acts of kindness. Some hosed down their own and their neighbors’ houses, waiting until the last possible moment to leave. Local businesses offered fire victims free or discounted services, food, and materials. Neighbors offered shelter to others who had been strangers a week before.

Some have recovered from seemingly irreplaceable losses. Jill Ryan, a doctoral student in psychology and a single mother of two, lost her dissertation data when her house burned. She started over with a different topic.

“It was too hard to re-create what I had already done,” she says. But she’s excited about the new topic—sleep medicine and insomnia—and the prospect of finishing. “The fire was a life-changing event,” she says. “But I have a new home, new friends, and I’ll soon have my Ph.D. and a new job.”

Norm Hamer, a systems engineer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also lost his home. He leads a survivors’ group that deals with the practical and emotional aftermath of the fire. The group provides support and guidance about such practical matters as working with the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) or collecting from insurance agencies, while weekly meetings solidify friendships.

“It’s almost as important to come and talk with fellow survivors as it is to find out what the regulations on some item are,” Hamer says. The local Church of Christ provides a meal and a place for the group’s weekly meetings of 60 to 200 people.

“I have met more people in this town than I could ever even think of,” he says, adding that the experience has deepened his sense of community. “You’re touched more by the people you’ve lived next to,’’ he says. “Sometimes it takes a disaster to pull people out of their shells and realize that there are people who need a hug.”

Renée Despres is a freelance writer from southwestern New Mexico.

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