Small towns in the West obliterated by fire (Part II): New York Times cover story

I wrote a few days ago about three towns destroyed by wildfires in the West, one each in California, Oregon and Washington.  Of course, those three towns are just a few of several that have faced that fate in recent days, including five destroyed in Oregon alone.  Now, the New York Times has a cover story in today's print edition headlined "Western Towns Riven by Grief of Fire Deaths."  The digital headline is "As the West Coast Burns, Communities Unravel with Each Death," Both hint at the lack of anonymity that marks rural places and small town, as does this part of the story by Thomas Fuller and Guilia McDonnell Nieto del Rio.  Wyatt Tofte is a 13-year old who was killed in the Beachie Creek Fire near Salem, Oregon.  

In Scio, Ore., the logging and farming town in the Willamette Valley where Wyatt Tofte went to middle school, a teacher and school administrator went door to door to Wyatt’s classmates on Friday to check on them. The start of school, which will be held remotely, has been delayed by the fires.

In a community like Scio with a population of around 1,000 people and one blinking traffic signal, children grow up together and know one another well.

“Everybody is family in Scio,” Nancy Dickerman, a resident, said.

And the coronavirus pandemic has robbed fire-ravaged communities from being able to grieve as a group. When schools in Scio begin their fall term on Sept. 18, students will be logging in from home.

“The realization will hit the kids when they have to physically go back to school, and he’s not there anymore,” said Margot Cooper, whose daughter was Wyatt’s classmate.

The next part of the story focuses on another teenage fire victim, 16 year old, Josiah Williams, who was killed by the Bear Fire near Berry Creek, California, a Butte County community of about 500 (according to wikipedia, 1,200 according to the New York Times).  In my earlier post about this recent batch of fires, I display some photos I took in Berry Creek in December, 2012.  Here's the NYTimes depiction of the community dynamic: 

Neighbors have grown up knowing one another’s families for years, sometimes decades. When the fires destroyed hundreds of homes, residents in the area jumped in to assist one another.

That reminds me of another rural theme that surfaces in this NYT story:  attachment to place and land.  The Tofte family had lived in the same home for three generations.  

More on the Oregon and Washington fires and their impact on small towns is here.

And here's another New York Times story linking what is happening in public education in California during the pandemic to the wildfires that are also having a big impact on the state's schools and students.   The lede for Dan Levin and Kate Taylor's story follows:  

Ash fell from an apocalyptic orange sky as Jennifer Willin drove home last week from the only school in tiny Berry Creek, Calif., where she had picked up a pair of Wi-Fi hot spots for her daughters’ remote classes. Hours later, her cellphone erupted with an emergency alert: Evacuate immediately.

By the next morning, what one official described as a “massive wall of fire” had swept through the entire Northern California town of about 1,200 people, killing nine residents, including a 16-year-old boy, and destroying the school and almost every home and business.

Ms. Willin and her family escaped to a cramped hotel room 60 miles away. In her panic, she had forgotten to grab masks, but she had the hot spots, along with her daughters’ laptops and school books. On Monday, the two girls plan to meet with their teachers on Zoom, seeking some comfort amid the chaos.

“They’re still able to be in school,” Ms. Willin said, “even though the school burned to the ground.”

Interestingly, none of the Berry Creek teachers live in Berry Creek, so they were not evacuated and are ready to deliver instruction online.