Roads to Recovery Vary for Brush Fire Victims : Disaster: Some have moved on to a new life quickly. Others are not yet sure where to begin.

For four of its victims, the November brush fire clearly meant material loss--in homes, art collections and irreplaceable, sentimental items like the tablecloth it took Jim Clements’ mother five years to crochet.

But so far, for most of these dispersed residents of the Santa Monica Mountains, the fire’s emotional resonance has been more complicated--sometimes, even oddly pleasurable.

For Clements, a dapper 52-year-old sales manager for a pharmaceutical company, the process of redesigning his destroyed A-frame aerie is an “adventure”--especially at a time when he worries about losing his job to corporate cost-cutting.

For Jonathan and Alison Traister, new parents whose son’s nursery burned with their rustic cabin, the outpouring of kindness after the fire made them feel at home in Los Angeles for the first time.

And for Doug and Rhonda Ware, a thirty-something couple with movie-star looks and two daughters, the fire brought freedom from the massive Spanish villa they were building and an expensive lifestyle they had begun to regret.

That’s not to say they haven’t suffered since the arson fire that ripped through 18,000 acres, racing from the Old Topanga highlands to Malibu in an afternoon and taking their homes, along with hundreds of others. All have been living out of boxes, wearing secondhand clothes and sleeping fitfully in unfamiliar surroundings.

Insurance, charity and family support aside, all fear some financial setback as they gradually replace what they had. But the lingering effects of the fire crop up annoyingly, in subtler ways, day after day.

Carla Formica, an intense assistant film editor who lost a much-loved wooden guest house in the blaze, kept meaning to go underwear shopping if only her grueling work schedule would allow it.

Jonathan Traister wanted to make a simple repair to his 7-week-old son’s stroller--then realized he no longer had a toolbox.

Rhonda Ware feels so scattered she finds it hard to buy groceries for more than one day at a time. Her husband, meanwhile, maintains a relentless, upbeat monologue and laughs nervously.

“I’m in denial,” Doug Ware finally says over a homemade cappuccino in the sparse, one-room guest house he has leased in Agoura. “People say I’m in denial.”

JIM CLEMENTS: Insured and Keeping It All in Perspective

Denial is a word that also surfaces with Clements, an affable man who wasted no time reordering his life after the fire razed his 20-year home on Saddle Peak Road, at the western edge of Topanga.

“I’ll tell you something,” he said recently from the plush-but-sterile surroundings of his temporary home. “I’m doing a damn good job of it if I’m in denial.”

Within days of the fire, Clements found a furnished ranch house with pool and hot tub in Pacific Palisades, a few doors down from a country club. Insurance covers his $5,500-a-month rent.

Left with the two suits and change of clothes he had taken on a business trip, he went to a Westwood men’s shop and charged $2,400 worth of apparel. Then Clements, a gourmet cook, hurled himself into rebuilding, working his way through 25 architectural style books for ideas and attending a seminar on kitchen design.

His first meeting with his architect was a relaxed occasion--champagne and pate at home, followed by dinner at Chinois on Main.

“I could go on a bummer for five years about this,” Clements said simply, “but I would rather have some friends over to drink champagne and eat good food.”

With a trim build, smooth complexion and large blue eyes, Clements is not glib--just a pragmatist with perspective and a ready list of reasons why he isn’t weeping.

He is well-insured, has so far been pleased with State Farm’s response and expects to receive enough money to build a better version of his home, if not furnish it. No one he loved, including pets, perished. (He is long divorced and has no children.) And the specter of fire has always been part of living on a rustic, mountaintop lot with panoramic views.

Unlike the sudden death of a beloved sister in a car crash several years ago, a destructive brush fire is something Clements has been mentally prepared for and its impact, he maintains, has been minimal.

“I knew the house could burn down, I knew it 20 years ago,” he said. “It wasn’t like getting a phone call and someone said, ‘Your sister’s dead.’ ”

This time, a message on his voice mail told him there was a fire in Topanga. He lost a woodsy, comfortable house he shared with two tenants--a house he had spent nearly three years building with his own hands--eight Persian carpets, four Russian icons, framed 18th-Century Chinese fans and a collection of English pewter.

There was an elaborate Moroccan wood carving hung over his bed so he could gaze at its colorful enamel handiwork before drifting off to sleep; his mother’s fancy tablecloth and hundreds of slides from his world travels, including a separate tray with the best of the bunch.

“If I could’ve taken one thing, that would’ve been it. That or my mother’s tablecloth--I would’ve taken that,” said Clements, who was in San Diego when the fire struck, missing the drama of being there. He confirmed his house had burned when he recognized his newly vacant lot on the television in his hotel room.

“Something in me just accepted it and let it go. I don’t know why,” he said.

Rebuilding is also a pleasant distraction from thinking about the changes in store at work this coming year, including possible layoffs, a concern he did not reveal until almost the end of an interview. Clements, who grew up poor in tiny Lytle, Tex., says he can handle whatever comes his way.

“I would rather have gone through what I’ve gone through than be living in Bosnia right now, or Moscow,” he said. “I’m looking at it as though I’ve sold everything and am starting a new life. That’s not the worst deal I’ve ever made.

“My health is important, my close friends are important. All the rest of it is like waves. That’s how I feel intellectually. What’s going on underneath, in my subconscious, I don’t know.”

CARLA FORMICA: Lots of Tears, Support But No Time to Shop

While Clements’ emotions and plans seem well under control, Formica’s life since the fire has been an exhausting jumble, her grief brimming over like a messy soup.

She cried daily for weeks afterward, often as she remembered yet another lost possession or the terror of packing up her car as she watched flames climb the hill toward her Calabasas home.

She has been shuttling between her parents’ house in Monte Nido and her boyfriend’s in Playa del Rey, boxes and bags full of secondhand clothes in tow. Putting in 16 hours a day, seven days a week on the final stages of an action film, she has had little time to shop for new underwear, let alone find a permanent place to live.

“It seems like it’s been months--like it’s been so long,” she groaned early one morning, wearing hand-me-down loafers and a red cotton sweater that fit her size but not her exuberant style.

“To summarize,” Formica sighed, brushing bangs out of her eyes, “I need a vacation.”

With luck, she will be on one as this story appears, deep-sea fishing off Mexico with her boyfriend.

Tall and athletic with long, wavy dark hair, Formica, 31, is an avid fisherwoman and collector of anything with a fish on it. “I just love the feel of a big, heavy tuna at the end of my rod,” she says. Her 16 rods and reels were among the few items she saved before evacuating the one-bedroom guest house she had rented for 10 years.

Gobbled up by flames were her fish-shaped Christmas tree ornaments; the music books her late mandolin teacher had given her, and an antique, soft-boiled egg bowl made for infants. It was porcelain and hand-painted with a chick and duck.

“It was so sweet and I was saving it for when I had a baby,” Formica sniffled.

Situated on 42 pristine acres off Stunt Road, Formica’s modest guest house was a cherished haven, and its destruction has meant a disorienting loss of tranquillity. She had lived there most of her adult life, starting when she went to work for her landlord as a nanny at age 18.

In later years, when work bore down on her, when a close friend’s husband died of cancer or romance failed, she found refuge in her English garden, home-grown vegetables and the deer, coyote and other untamed animals that would venture near her door.

“I used to just sit in my window and take the most amazing photos,” she said wistfully.

The property’s main house--a modern, poured-concrete structure with a sod roof--survived the brush fire, but Formica’s wooden guest house was razed.

Now, doubtful that she’ll match her $500-a-month rent, she is thinking of buying a used trailer and putting it somewhere on the same property. Co-workers gave her nearly $1,000 in cash, she was thinking of applying for a low-interest Federal Emergency Management Act loan and she heard of some good deals available through bank foreclosures.

For smaller purchases (she had no renters’ insurance), Formica picked up cash vouchers from the Red Cross, but she has been too tired or unfocused to make much use of them. The vouchers, for such items as clothing, furniture and cookware, must be spent all at once--a rule that has frustrated more than one weary fire victim.

During one late-night attempt to buy underwear, sales clerks weren’t sure how to process the voucher and Formica was bounced from the lingerie department to the store’s executive offices and back. On another futile shopping trip during her lunch hour, she didn’t have enough time to decide how to spend the money. Then she forgot where she had parked.

What she does have is a supportive network of family and old friends from her days at Calabasas High School. Over comforting portions of lasagna, stuffed mushrooms and pastries one drizzly Sunday, they threw her a “shower” to replace many of the items she had lost, waiting patiently as she kept dashing to a bedroom to cry.

The gifts ranged from a broom and dust pan to a black silk teddy and set of ceramic bowls for her mutt, Freeway.

And as her plans slowly gel, she has begun to comb the classifieds for used furniture and other necessities. She spent $95 for a coffee table, side table and chest of drawers. She also feels strong enough now to return to the site of her old home and pick through the rubble.

“When I go back up there, I don’t cry,” Formica said. “There’s too much to be done.”

THE TRAISTERS: A Chance to Feel a Part of the Community

Jonathan and Alison Traister have also been in mourning for their lost Shangri-La, an old cabin they rented on 30 acres of western Topanga Canyon. There, they had a peach tree, apple tree, prickly pears and an old-fashioned outdoor bathtub big enough for them to soak together with the mountains behind and a grape arbor above.

“I felt like a Greek god there with my goddess, picking grapes,” said Jonathan, an affectionate, 24-year-old teacher in training.

Alison, a 30-year-old artist, recently dreamed they were back at home and didn’t have to leave after all, only fix the roof in case it rained. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s great! So what have we been worrying about?’ And there was suddenly a great feeling of relief.”

But the dream evaporated into the realization that they were sleeping with their 3 1/2-month-old son, Monty, in a strange bed and living out of six boxes organized by clothes, books, baby things and cooking utensils.

For all the disruption to their lives, the Traisters have been philosophical, choosing to dwell on the kindnesses that made them feel truly at home in Los Angeles for the first time.

She is from a close-knit family in England, he grew up in New York City and both are used to having friends and relatives within walking distance. Unaccustomed to Los Angeles’ car culture and the isolation it can bring, they often felt disconnected here. Then the fire prompted neighbors, co-workers--even the customers at the restaurant where Jonathan waits tables--to rally behind them with calls, cards and cash.

Devout vegetarians, they have received several free meals at their favorite macrobiotic haunt, the Real Foods Daily restaurant in Santa Monica. Jonathan got a free pair of glasses from Lens Crafters.

They stayed the first month, rent-free, at an Oakwood Apartments complex in Marina del Rey that even accepted their Labrador retriever, Dexter, against house rules. Then they moved temporarily to an apartment in Santa Monica whose owner Jonathan met during the fire, when they were stranded at the bottom of Topanga Canyon.

He said his house had burned “and she said, ‘Well, you can stay at my place, no problem.’ ”

The outpouring has affirmed their worldview that everyone is connected, each person’s actions affect others and everything happens for a reason. For them, the fire has been a double-edged sword--”like a cleansing and a mourning,” Alison said, and must have been meant as a life lesson.

If so, it’s been an inconvenient one.

Alison was still recovering from childbirth when, investigators believe, the fire was set behind Mulholland Drive in Calabasas and quickly spread south and west into Topanga and Malibu. Though she and Jonathan managed to grab dolls they had made for Monty and a hamper full of his clothes, they lost his crib.

“I’ve been in the midst of my nesting phase with no place to nest,” Alison said.

But Monty seems unaffected. Most of the time he is strapped to one of their chests, sleeping cooperatively as they perform an endless cycle of fire-related errands.

“Monty’s cool. Monty’s really cool,” Jonathan said, looking at his blue-eyed son and smiling.

With baby attached, they recently spent a whopping seven hours at Ikea, painstakingly picking out furniture and housewares that matched both their taste and their Red Cross budget. Their vouchers totaled $755--$380 for a bed, $40 for linens, $160 for a chest of drawers and $75 for kitchen stuff.

Their immediate plans included a trip to New York and England for Christmas. (Jonathan’s mother treated them to the plane tickets.) But they’re not sure where they’ll live when they return in January.

Between high rents (they had been paying just $655, including utilities, for their cabin) and their big yellow dog, they have so far been unable to find an apartment. Dexter has been staying at a friend’s in Topanga and his owners miss him.

“He’s the coolest dog and everyone says no pets,” Jonathan said. “It’s really hard.”

They have talked about renovating the top floor of a friend’s house in exchange for rent or building a yurt and putting it on their old landlord’s property. But the materials for even the Mongolian-style tent would cost more than they have, and their application for a FEMA loan was rejected because of their low income.

They still plan to apply for a federal grant being offered to fire victims, and despite the hardships and uncertainty ahead, they marvel over the help they have already received.

While frantically trying to replace their burned passports in time for their trip, they phoned a Kinko’s outlet in Reno, Nev., where they were married, and asked a clerk if she would go to the local courthouse for them, copy their marriage certificate and mail it. The stranger named Melanie did it gladly.

“Truly we are blessed,” Alison said. “We have Monty. We have our health. What else could we ask for?”

“Well,” Jonathan said, laughing, “maybe a home.”

THE WARES: Losing a House They Weren’t Sure They Wanted

Months before the fire, Doug and Rhonda Ware were already questioning their definition of home.

On a prime Saddle Peak lot whose views extend from Catalina Island to downtown Los Angeles, they were preparing to build a seven-bedroom, 8,500-square-foot Spanish-style house. Doug designed it himself for their collection of native Californian furniture, paintings and pottery.

Their confidence buoyed by the profits from the sale of their first home and the state’s real-estate craze, the radiant blond couple stashed their treasures in a steel bin on the property and were roughing it in a trailer until Doug, a 37-year-old self-employed contractor, could begin the project of his career.

Then the economy turned, they realized building costs had tripled and suddenly they felt weighed down by a mortgage and the baggage of their belongings.

The fire, said Doug, just “made some decisions for us we were unable to make.”

“Part of it freaked us out and part of it liberated and set us free,” said Rhonda, who is 33.

They are renting a tiny Agoura guest house now. Daughters Lillian, 4 1/2, and Melanie, 3, share a cramped bedroom and bunk beds donated by the family’s church. In the main room, three paces from the kitchen sink, Doug and Rhonda sleep on a futon beneath a brooding landscape that is the only painting left of their 18 California oils.

It has been a humbling experience they have met with varying degrees of humor.

After a friend offered to help them move from a hotel into the guest house, Doug laughed appreciatively, saying: “And carry all two of our suitcases?” He keeps up a relentless, optimistic banter--favorably comparing their situation to Bosnia and other war zones.

“I collect Ikea now, and Pier One,” he says jovially.

“He’s painting a good picture,” says Rhonda, a homemaker whose daily routine has dissolved without the anchor of a home. Anxiously twisting her Cartier wedding ring, she admits her nerves are raw.

“For the first time in my life, I understand why some people get depressed during Christmas,” she said. “I wish we could just skip through it.”

Charity has been comforting and uncomfortable for both of them.

Rhonda feels guilty about registering at the Broadway for dishes and cookware, though she said: “When you’re over 30 and you’ve gone this far and know what your tastes are, it’s hard to live with everyone’s odds and ends.”

Doug was thrown a shower by the church men’s club to replace $2,000 worth of lost building tools. Then the congregation passed the plate for them. “That was pretty embarrassing,” he said.

With the insurance money they expect for their art, their trailer and its contents, and if they can get a low-interest FEMA loan, the Wares hope to put more into their mortgage to build up the equity in their land. After that, they’re not sure what they’ll do. They promised themselves to make no decisions this year.

“Maybe we’ve been given a chance not to get into debt,” Doug said, thinking out loud. “Maybe we can travel to Europe. Maybe we can leave California. This is an expensive place to live, with the economy, and with kids.”

He has had his moments of despair. The day of the fire, after helping neighbors defend their houses and finally watching his trailer go up in flames, Doug called Rhonda at her mother’s to break the news and found he couldn’t utter her name.

Then he bought a bottle of champagne and greeted his wife and daughters with the words: “Here’s to a new life.”