Burned Home, Psychic Scar

Since Nov. 4, Catherine Sanchez has been going through moods like a marathoner going through water bottles.

She stood in silent shock as firefighters doused the flames in the Fullerton apartment she shared with her 14-year-old daughter Megann for more than four years. And she wept when a police officer first approached her.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to jail,’ ” Sanchez said.

While she waited in line at a Burger King later in the week, Sanchez, 38, cracked jokes with other customers about “the bonfire” that consumed her home and drove her and Megann toward the mercy of friends, neighbors and the American Red Cross.

The fire, started by a short circuit in Megann’s bedroom, caused $35,000 in damage, fire investigators said. But the damage to Sanchez’s psyche is harder to calculate.

One moment, she’ll joke, the next she’ll cry--then she’ll joke as she cries. There’s a nagging feeling of guilt she can’t shake.

“I have to call the phone, the gas, the electric company,” Sanchez said.

Then she adds: “I’m kind of dreading calling my parents.”

Believe this one or not: Her father was a fire captain in Buena Park and installed electrical surge protectors throughout her apartment.

In many ways, what befell Sanchez and her daughter is typical of most residential fires, and typical of what hundreds of fire victims go through in Orange County every year. They lost their home and most of their possessions. But they themselves were physically unscathed. Emotionally, it’s a different story.

“There’s a grieving process. A structure fire is not just a loss of property. It’s a very personal loss,” said Capt. Paul Hunter of the Orange County Fire Authority. “Just the fact that you had a fire in your home is a very personally felt event. It’s like a personal invasion. Like being robbed.”

Residential fires that result in death are relatively rare, Hunter said.

But last year, the Orange County Chapter of the American Red Cross had to help 931 people in 248 families find places to stay after disasters, mostly fires, said Rebecca Long, a Red Cross spokeswoman.

The Red Cross offers warm meals, new clothing and housing. But just as important, it offers mental health services. Sanchez said that was invaluable.

“We really need the counseling,” Sanchez said. “I want my daughter to be normal after this. She hasn’t really cried yet, and I’m worried.”

A co-worker offered to let Sanchez stay at her place. Because Megann goes to Sunny Hills High School, near the burned apartment, neighbors let her stay with them so she could get to school easily.

But though Sanchez is grateful for the help, she’s uneasy about wearing out her welcome. Eventually, she let the Red Cross house her at a motel. She’s anxious to find a new place, but can’t afford the rents in most neighborhoods. Her apartment cost her $595. Most other places charge about $200 more, and that’s not counting sizable deposits.

And even if she could afford those rates, she would have to buy a lot of new furniture, she said. Outside her burned-out apartment, a large trash container contains many of Megann’s possessions, including her bed. Sanchez said she now regrets not buying renter’s insurance.

“I’ve been kicking myself hard over that,” she said. “It would have only cost me a little bit more.”

Insured, she would have been able to replace the furniture, Megann’s clothes, her computer, tables, chairs, a television, jewelry and other possessions. She would have been able to repair or replace countless things that were scorched or tarnished by the fire.

Sanchez, an administrative assistant at a La Mirada engineering firm, has asked her employer if she could tap into her retirement plan. The company has said it will try to give her a loan against that money instead.

The breadth of things to take care of after a fire--both bureaucratic and personal--rattles people, Hunter said.

Things can be so dizzying that the fire authority and other departments at scenes of disasters hand out a volume called the Disaster Recovery Handbook. It’s a list of what sort of activities one needs to go through after a fire or other emergency, Hunter said.

The list includes contacting an insurance company; protecting property from vandals and theft by boarding up gutted property or taking other measures; calling police to let them know the property is vulnerable; removing important documents and records if possible; collecting receipts of money spent during the crisis, because the money might be recoverable; and contacting a child’s school, one’s employer and the county tax assessor.

For Sanchez’s part, no matter how many times she returns to her sooty apartment, she can’t believe what happened.

“I can’t get over it. I walk away from this place, and by the time I come back, I always forget what it looks like,” Sanchez said as she stands in her completely blackened living room. The smoke-tinted windows have cracks Sanchez said she doesn’t remember.

Amazingly, Megann’s bedroom closet was virtually untouched. The rest of the room, however, like much of the apartment, looks like a black, sludgy, ruined landscape.

“We were just being lazy on a Saturday. We were going to make cookies later in the day. We went to go shopping,” Sanchez said, “and you come home and your place is on fire.”