California fire victims take time to reflect

updated 12:30 a.m. ET Oct. 29, 2007

SAN DIEGO - Survivors of firestorms that destroyed more than 2,000 homes in Southern California found reasons Sunday to be thankful even as the damage toll mounted and firefighters worked to contain blazes.

Fire officials kept an eye on warm, dry weather that moved in behind a moist, tropical system that allowed fire crews to make gains Saturday. Winds up to 15 mph were expected but weren’t considered a problem.

“This is fire conditions that we can actively fight, unlike the Santa Ana winds,” said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

But there was a possibility of strong offshore winds in another seven days, he said.

It was the onset of the seasonal Santa Anas — fierce, dry winds blowing from the desert and out to sea — that spread fires across more than 500,000 acres of Southern California during the week, chasing a half-million people from communities as homes burned.

Taking time out to reflect
Despite the destruction, so many who lost so much still gave thanks at church services in some of the hardest-hit communities.

At the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church, where 60 families lost homes, they gave thanks for the big things: for lives saved, for families, for friendships. They also gave thanks for small things: a hug, a shoulder to cry on.

Nancy Hylbert gave thanks for a wrought-iron ice cream table and chairs that survived outside, and a terra cotta statue of a cat from her garden.

“They are the only links with my past, “ she said. “I feel a little bit like an amnesiac with no link to my past.”

Barbara Warden escaped her home with only three boxes of photographs and her grandfather’s cuckoo clock.

“We’re sitting in church and I’m saying to myself, ’Our lives will never be the same,”’ she said.

And yet Warden said she, too, was thankful. Nobody in her community or family was hurt.

‘Lot to be thankful for’
A day earlier, she sifted through the ashes of her home and found a sundial given to her by her husband. It was engraved with the message: “Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be.”

“That says it all, doesn’t it?” she said. “We have a lot to be thankful for. We have each other.”

At Crestline, in the Lake Arrowhead region of the fire-ravaged San Bernardino Mountains, about 25 members of the Community Presbyterian Church had to piece together their own worship service because their interim pastor couldn’t get a resident’s card, the crucial piece of identification needed to drive past roadblocks.

A sign outside the church said, “Life is Fragile; Handle with Prayer.”

Members hugged and rejoiced over the congregation’s fortune: The fire had spared all local members’ homes, a woman had given birth to a healthy boy while evacuated, and power had stayed on for those who disobeyed the order to leave town.

“Praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; we have lucked out much more than we deserve,” said Bill Lange, a scientist who led the service. “Dear Lord, thank you for sparing us again and thank you for helping all the people who needed the help.”

As the organist started playing “Here I Am, Lord,” several women wiped tears from under their glasses.

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