Lives in Limbo Rise From the Ashes : Aftermath: Homeowners who lost their houses are living in hotels and trying to cope with insurance adjusters as they adjust to their losses.

Until last month, Marcos and Perla Kotoyan lived with their 3-year-old son, Raffi, in a hillside Glendale house with spacious rooms, plenty of sunlight and fine artwork on the walls. Through remodeling, Perla had just created her dream kitchen.

Today, the house is in ruins. It was one of 66 houses that were destroyed or damaged June 27 in a savage, fast-moving brush fire that was the worst in Glendale’s history.

The Kotoyans’ current house is a single fifth-floor room at the Glendale Holiday Inn, with dim lighting, nondescript paintings on a beige wall, two beds, a television set, a mini-refrigerator and a range top. The cramped conditions have taken an emotional toll on Marcos, 50, a pediatrician who works 12-hour days, and Perla, 38, a former nurse who looks after the couple’s son.

“I want to cook for my husband,” Perla Kotoyan said. “He comes home very late, and he doesn’t like going out to eat that much. I say, ‘What can I cook for you?’ I can’t! I don’t have utensils. I don’t want to make a big mess in here. Raffi eats at McDonald’s all the time.”

The room is a poor substitute for home, she said. “I miss the feeling of comfort. We’ve been to many hotels on vacations. But I’m going to hate hotels after this.”

The Kotoyans are among the many families left homeless by the Glendale brush fire last month. Since then, the ashes have cooled, debris has been cleared and the fire victims are facing the formidable challenge of rebuilding their houses--and their lives.

In the weeks since the fire, these families, while reeling over the loss of their possessions and familiar environments, have had to negotiate with insurance adjusters, find temporary lodgings, shop for new clothes and furnishings and decide whether to reconstruct their houses or sell their lots.

“The last thing you want to do is build a home after you’ve had a tragedy,” Perla Kotoyan said. Everybody’s telling us, ‘Oh, it’s better. You’ll have a nice house, a new house. And everything you’re buying is new.’ That’s wrong. You’re putting up something new, and underneath it’s all black. We’re wearing new things, but inside it’s very sad.”

Her husband added, “You can never replace what is lost. It’s a different feeling. I get attached to things that I have collected over the years.”

Perla Kotoyan was home with Raffi on the afternoon of June 27 when she saw the skylight grow dark with smoke. When she fled with her son, firefighters were on the street and she believed her house would be saved. Instead, its wood-shingle roof ignited and the house was destroyed.

Had she known its fate, Perla Kotoyan would have tried to save her wedding albums, some jewelry and needlework handed down from her family. They were lost along with most of the limited-edition art prints Marcos Kotoyan had collected.

Perla Kotoyan had her most heartbreaking moment recently when she learned that her destroyed wedding photographs could not be reproduced. The photographer told her the negatives were lost.

The Kotoyans stayed with cousins for a few days but moved to the hotel because they did not want to impose. They said their insurance covers the hotel bill and will pay for the rental house they hope to move into soon.

“Our policy is considered one of the good ones, a deluxe policy,” Marcos Kotoyan said. “In principle, it says it’s going to cover replacement costs. We hope it’s going to be true to the letter of the policy.”

Like many of the fire victims, the Kotoyans have not yet reached a final settlement with their insurance company. But they plan to rebuild, and city officials have promised speedy approval of permits if their new house is similar to the old one.

“We are trying to make a plan as to when we are going to move out of the hotel and into a rental house and get an architect,” Marcos Kotoyan said. “We already had enough things to do. Now we have to go through this, and it’s not easy.”

For Carl W. Raggio III, his wife, Susan, and their six children, replacing every possession lost in the fire is an enormous effort, even though they were insured.

“One of the major inconveniences is that we have to go back and remember and write down and itemize every single item that we owned in order to get paid for it,” Susan Raggio said. “Every nail clipper and every sock. You have to say when you got it and what it cost. Try that for a family of eight!”

On the day the fire consumed their four-bedroom house on Foxkirk Road, such material losses were the last things to concern Carl Raggio, 37, and Susan Raggio, 36, who work in Century City as corporate bankers.

The Raggios’ twin 13-year-old daughters, Christina and Jennifer, were baby-sitting the couple’s 16-month-old triplets. Their 12-year-old brother, Carl Raggio IV, was away at camp.

As the brush fire raced toward their house, with no firefighters in sight, the twins fled. Christina pushed a double stroller that held two of the triplets, Peter and Katie, and Jennifer carried the third, Andrew, with one arm and held the family’s golden retriever on a leash with her other hand.

“They didn’t have time to get their shoes on,” Susan Raggio said. “They ran out in their bare feet and ended up getting third-degree burns.” The family was reunited that night at the house of Carl Raggio’s father, Glendale Councilman Carl Raggio Jr. That’s when the depth of their material losses began to register.

“You want to try to sit down as family and get the soot off,” Carl Raggio said. “Then you realize there isn’t anything else to wear. There’s nothing to brush your teeth with.”

“There were no diapers to change the babies,” Susan Raggio added.

Within hours, as the news of their loss spread, assistance poured in. Friends provided cribs, highchairs, a playpen, infant car seats, toys and plenty of apparel for the adults and older children.

The Raggios had to wait two days to meet with an adjuster because their insurance company’s resources were strained by the simultaneous firestorms in Glendale and Santa Barbara.

They were pestered by numerous public adjusters, who offered to represent them in exchange for a percentage of the final insurance settlement. Carl Raggio said he was uncomfortable with such proposals and did not want to provoke an adversarial relationship with his insurance company.

He said the family plans to build a somewhat larger house on the same lot. The Raggios will have to absorb the extra costs wherever the structure exceeds their original house.

Carl Raggio said the family had a combined policy covering the structure and its contents and guaranteeing replacement costs. But even this arrangement has strained the family finances because the reimbursement does not occur immediately.

“They give you an advance, which is on the depreciated value,” Susan Raggio said. “Then you have to go out and buy things at today’s value, and they reimburse you for the difference. The problem is the time gap. We’re out our personal funds, or else we have to replace things slowly.”

When they began adding up the cost of replacing their furniture, clothing, appliances, silverware, china and other belongings, they estimated that it would far exceed $100,000 and may surpass the limit of their contents coverage. “We thought initially it would be very sufficient,” Carl Raggio said. “Then you realize you forgot closets full of stuff.”

After the fire, the family spent a few days with relatives, then checked into the Burbank Airport Hilton. Two weeks ago, the Raggios moved into a spacious hillside rental house just north of their former house so that the older children can continue to attend their regular school until the family’s house is rebuilt in about a year.

They have filled the rental house with leased furniture and purchased some appliances. “Usually, to buy a refrigerator or a washing machine and dryer, there’s a ceremony about it,” Susan Raggio said. “We did it in 45 minutes. ‘I’ll take that, that and that, OK? And the vacuum cleaner, too. I don’t care what you give me.’ It’s not fun.”

Susan Raggio said she finds comfort in the Bible given to her and her husband by the children to replace a treasured volume, lost in the fire, in which family milestones were recorded.

On an opening page, the children wrote: “Mom and dad you’ve lost many things in a terrible fire. God blessed us, though, by keeping us together. . . . There were a lot of memories in that Bible, but the real memories are in our hearts, and the real pictures are in our minds.”

For two older Glendale residents, each living alone, the hillside fire dealt a particularly harsh blow.

Fritz Skinner, 78, was atop his Avonoak Terrace house June 27, hosing down the roof as the firestorm approached. Police officers hustled him away before he could retrieve his car or any belongings, including his wallet.

“I didn’t get away with anything but what I was wearing--a pair of shorts, a dirty shirt and my wristwatch,” said Skinner, a retired oil industry executive. “That’s all I have left.”

Skinner moved in with his brother, Norman, and quickly obtained a temporary driver’s license. His bank provided temporary checks and a charge card. Next he purchased a new car.

“Then you start into the mountain of work,” he said. “There’s no end to it.”

Skinner had lived in the house for 22 years, and the mortgage was paid off. He updated his fire policy after his wife died two years ago, but he believes it may not cover full replacement costs for the dwelling and its contents.

Only his chimney remains, but buyers interested in the land quickly contacted him through a real estate agent. “I had people calling me to buy it before it had even cooled off,” he said. “It’s hard in Glendale to get a good view lot like that, so it was in demand.”

Within a week, Skinner had decided to sell the lot and move into a condominium elsewhere. The sale is in escrow.

“Chances are, I could have made some money by rebuilding,” he said. “But who knows what the real estate market will be like next year? I don’t have that much greed. I’ve gone through the loss of my wife first, then the loss of my home. There are some things more important than making another dollar or two.

“What I’ve been through when I lost my wife, that is grief. This is nothing but work. This is stress. There’s no sense crying over that. I might as well get on with it and find my way out and start over.”

Like Skinner, Amelia Reinhart, who will turn 88 in September, lost a lifetime of precious family photos and mementos in addition to many community service awards when flames rushed up the hill, ignited her rear patio and engulfed her Sweetbriar Drive house.

Reinhart has been an active community volunteer for Glendale Community College and many local service clubs. After the fire, members of these organizations rushed to assist her. “They all came to my aid, which is absolutely beautiful,” she said. “They’re just good people.”

Reinhart, helped by her son Charles, is negotiating with her insurance company and making plans to rebuild.

“This is my home,” she said. “Where else could I go? I’m building it closer to the road. Of course, I won’t have the view that I enjoyed, but then I have to sacrifice the view for safety’s sake.”

Reinhart, an avid gardener, was startled recently to see fresh green leaves sprouting from her orange and lemon trees, which were badly charred in the fire. Beside the gutted ruins of her house, a potted bromeliad plant has also sent up a spectacular pink blossom.

“You know, when they have a forest fire, weeds and grass start growing soon after the fire is out,” she said. “Nature has a way of starting things growing again, regardless of the problems.”