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CHICO – For Vicki Hoggins, whose heavenly home was among the thousands of people destroyed by California's deadliest fire, a Thanksgiving feast with one of his daughters and many other neighbors now homeless at the brewery and brewery Chico Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. enough to be grateful.
Regardless, she did not help cook the turkey or prepare family favorite side dishes, such as a salmon sandwiched over crackers, a spinach pan and a pumpkin pie with Cool Whip mixed with pumpkin on a graham cracker crust.
"I thought we would not have Thanksgiving," said her visiting daughter, Whitney Massae, as they all ate the brewery, which hosted the volunteers' dinner for the evacuees. devastating destructive camp. "But with everyone here having the same experience, I feel a sense of community."
The camp fire, which began on November 8 and has so far burned 153,336 acres, killing at least 84 people and destroying 13,906 homes and 4,747 other structures, has been subdued to about 95 %, according to officials.
More than 560 people remain on the "missing" list of the Butte County Sheriff's Office, and recovery teams were to continue working during the Thanksgiving rainy holidays in search of human remains.
Throughout the region, volunteers organized Thanksgiving dinners in shelters and elsewhere. Many volunteers themselves were evacuees or first responders.
And many of the dinners have been prepared by the best chefs in the world, including celebrities. World Central Kitchen, an organization founded by chef Jose Andres who coordinates and prepares meals for people in crisis, hosted dinners at the Chico campus of California State University and at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co event. provided meals at Red Cross shelters for several days before Thanksgiving.
"When normality disappears, food allows you to stay in touch with the humanity we are aiming for," Andres said in an interview while sitting at a table at the CSU Memorial Union Chico, Thanksgiving day, near some of his volunteers.
Guy Fieri, gastronomic star on television, and Tyler Florence, based in the Bay Area, were also present.
Unfortunately, Florence said, the scene of the fire refugees was not new to him. "It's becoming the new norm," Florence said of California's destructive forest fires. He had gone to the scene of the destructive fires in the California wine region last year and then again to Carr Fire in Shasta County.
Those who lost their homes, their pets and their belongings in camp fire still in flames this month will have to find a new "normality", but this still seems so out of reach, said many, in especially on the occasion of Thanksgiving.
Everything still seems surreal, said John and Marianne Deurloo while they dined at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Even though John Deurloo knew the brewery well, aged 57 – he was working at the age of 19 as a bottling and brewing supervisor – Thursday was way off the Thanksgiving tradition, which usually involves visiting family. in Truckee or elsewhere in Northern California.
The Deurloos stay around Chico to settle their affairs. They lost their home near Bille Park and their six cats – "our babies," said John Deurloo. He has also had success with his company, Miner John Designs, which he operated primarily from his home and online, selling parts for gold detectors.
But after fleeing paradise aboard a four-wheeled vehicle, they said they were thankful to have managed to get out alive. In the morning, the fire broke out in the nearby canyon, said John Deurloo. He thought it was raining until he realized that there was only ash and bits of charcoal, not water. They had started packing their stuff and loaded their cats into the car, but it was impossible to navigate the cobblestone streets.
"A neighbor came out saying," There is no way out, run in your life, "he said during his Thanksgiving meal. So they put the cats back home and left the car packed in the alley, hoping that the fire would stop in the clearing where their house was, and then jumped into their four-wheeled vehicle with just the clothes on the back and escaped to the ground. Skyway in Chico as the flames licked near their ankles.
They would later learn that their cats and their house did not survive the devastation.
Families in the dining rooms and shelters shared their own scary escape stories, many of whom had the same fate trapped in traffic and wondering if they would survive.
Debbie Edgmon said she called her husband, Mike, while trying to get to Pearson from his home near Pentz Road in Paradise, to tell him she was not sure about get there. One of her daughters found her and they managed to escape, but barely.
Thanksgiving was the first time since the November 8 fire that the Edgmons and their two daughters, Erica and Michelle, were able to meet. They had separated to stay with their friends and family in different cities – Willows, Oroville and Sacramento. All four, as well as Erica's and Michelle's fiancé and boyfriend, lived in paradise and had been displaced.
Normally at Thanksgiving, they watched Macy's Thanksgiving parade on TV and prepared their feast all day, Michelle said. And while the food in Sierra Nevada was "excellent" – with turkey, mashed potatoes, various desserts and pies, among other treats – it was not so nice to be at home for the holidays.
Debbie said she could not help but wonder what the next Christmas holiday would look like. Nearly 30 people usually gather – Debbie's sisters and brother also live in paradise – Christmas Eve. They are hoping to soon rent a house in time for another Christmas rally.
As she dined with her daughter and friends, Hoggins said that she was struck by how the typical arguments that sometimes appear during the holidays – especially about politics – seem so thin after a disaster such as campfire.
Looking at evacuees, firefighters and volunteers wandering the Sierra Nevada dining hall, many with a tired smile, Hoggins said, "It shows just how unimportant everything is. People are basically good.
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