It’s been five years since the Cameron Peak Fire ravaged our neighborhood and stole our home. Barely half of us who lost homes have rebuilt. Some decided it wasn’t worth it or they were too old to start over rebuilding in a wildfire zone, so they moved. A few survivors sold their properties and left our mountain community. A couple of folks have since passed.

The night we lost a portion of our community, fire-driven winds raged through the area at more than 95 mph. I’m not surprised that I found bits half a mile away. I still find pieces of the contents of our old home as I wander around the house. In the past few weeks, I found handfuls of broken tile and porcelain pieces that had made their way to the surface. The bits were from the tile flooring, fireplace mosaic, and dishes. I even find fragments on the road where I walk the dogs.

We’ve been in the new house for almost two years. These two years haven’t been without a few hiccups. When the manufacturer built the house, it included appliances: the kitchen (refrigerator, dishwasher, stovetop/oven, and microwave), furnace, and water heater. They built the venting in, but didn’t add the finish.

Then, along came our first full winter, complete with blowing snow. The blowing snow caused the furnace output vent to clog, causing a carbon monoxide buildup in the house. The alarms went nuts. On a cold, crappy night, we’re airing out the house to get the things to shut the blank up. Oh, and the noise freaked the dogs out. No one got much sleep that night.

We still need to tackle the rest of the basement. If I think I’m going to get my gaming area set up anytime soon, I need to get busy. We’ve been chipping away at the boxes of unknown and forgotten treasures, taking what we don’t need to the local resale store and sending what we no longer use into the landfill or recycling. It’s a slow process.

The view isn’t the same, of course. Trees stand like blackened matchsticks along the hillside, some broken, some fallen, roots exposed. The lush greenery carpeting the hillside adds a stark contrast to the devastation still visible on the landscape. We see reminders of wildfire everywhere we look.

I still feel that another uncontrollable natural event could rip it all away again. Maybe I never will. I attribute it to the trauma of losing everything in such a complete and arbitrary way. Stuff is just stuff. All that really matters is who’s there to help when bad crap takes you down.