HILO — Wildfires continued Tuesday to burn out of control in Northern and Southern California, and for at least two East Hawaii residents the devastation and suffering are a bit more personal.
Patrice Wolf is a volunteer Red Cross nurse who deployed to help those displaced by the fires in Southern California, while Bridge Hartman’s half-brother, who lives in Paradise, was displaced by the Northern California Camp Fire and his grandparents’ home was threatened.
The Camp Fire and the Southern California Woosley Fire had blackened about 100,000 acres as of press time Tuesday. The Camp Fire, the most destructive in California history, had destroyed more than 6,400 homes, while the Woosley Fire had destroyed more than 400 homes.
About 50 people were known to have lost their lives in the fires, with many more missing.
Wolf is a disaster relief veteran, and this is, by her own estimation, “about my 10th deployment.” She’s also volunteered closer to home, with her resume of catastrophes including the Puna lava crisis this year and Tropical Storms Iselle and Darby. Her deployments also include Hurricane Matthew in 2016 in Florida and North Carolina, Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017 and Hurricane Florence in North Carolina earlier this year.
“I have a sister and a son and they both live in California, so as soon as I heard that the wildfires had sprung up again, I asked to be deployed. I went within 24 hours,” Wolf said Tuesday.
Wolf and her husband live near Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and she describes herself as “semi-retired,” working part-time for Kahu Malama Nurses, an agency based in Honolulu.
Maria Lutz, regional disaster director for the American Red Cross of Hawaii, described Wolf as an experienced and steady hand in time of crisis.
“She’s going out as a supervisor at this time to help manage others,” Lutz said.
Wolf is stationed at a shelter set up in the gymnasium of California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, west of Los Angeles. She described the mood of those being served by the shelter as “apprehensive.”
“A lot of people’s homes have burned. They’re not sure where they’re going to live,” she said.
She said some people were forced to evacuate so quickly that they didn’t have a chance to take their medications or medical equipment with them.
“When they leave, they just grab things, and they don’t grab their meds,” she said. “The biggest thing is getting their medication, if they need eyeglasses or hearing aids, or things like their nebulizers, their CPAP machines, things like that.”
Wolf described the Santa Ana winds as “significant.”
“They’re gusting, like, maybe 50 or 60 miles per hour,” she said. “This morning, when I woke up, another fire popped up. It looked maybe 15 miles away from here, but there was a huge plume of smoke in the sky. So everybody’s just wondering what direction is the wind’s going to blow? Right now, they’re continuing to blow off shore, but if the wind direction were to change, that would be a whole ’nother story.”
Hartman, a Hilo resident, said his half-brother, Jason Noyes, who used to live in Kona, has been in Paradise — a town of about 27,000 essentially reduced to rubble by the Camp Fire — for years.
“We haven’t been able to get in contact with them since the fire,” he said. “I know they had to evacuate and communication hasn’t been great. I do know that they’re safe and they got out. My grandparents live outside of Oroville. There are some rescue units there and they’re being prepared to evacuate. Two of their friends had to leave Paradise and two mutual friends actually passed away in the fire.”
Hartman said watching the progress of the fire “feels a little bit like when the lava eruption was happening and how surreal it was.”
“I’ve been to these places, Paradise and Berry Creek,” he said. “Those forests are beautiful and it feels like a different world up there. It’s really unfortunate to see that it’s just gone, flattened.”
The Red Cross said more than 300,000 people have been forced to evacuate.
According to Lutz, other volunteers are standing by for deployment to California and Saipan, where Typhoon Yutu has wreaked havoc.
“A disaster can obviously impact any community suddenly,” she said. “So we encourage folks to volunteer locally for Red Cross because we’re the ones who are making sure that there are shelters available and really looking after humanitarian needs that may arise due to disasters. So the more local people we can train, the better, so we can provide our services that much faster.”
Donations are being accepted to help the Red Cross with disaster relief. Donations can be made online at redcross.org/hawaii or by phone at 1-800-RED CROSS or (808) 739-8109. Donations of $10 also can be made by texting CAWILDFIRES to 90999.
To all the volunteers, from whatever service, and whatever source — thank you! When a disaster hits you between the eyes, the comforting hand of a complete stranger can save not just your life, but your sanity.