HAVILAH, Calif. (KERO) — One family moves closer to rebuilding their home in Havilah after it burned down in the Borel Fire.
- The removal program is free for those who properties are damaged in the Borel Fire. The only time the program will take money is if the homeowner has home insurance allocated money specifically for debris removal.
- Baylor Cartica, Emergency Services Coordinator for the California Office of Emergency Services estimates the program will be finished clearing all the properties impacted by the Borel Fire in March of 2025.
- Cartica told me the order in which the properties get cleaned is determined by a variety of shifting factors. One of those being proximity to local infrastructure. Another factor is when the property owner plans to return.
- If you are waiting for debris removal to return to your property, you can contact Kern County Public Health to let them know.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“I think everybody living here is ecstatic of the fact that the whole thing is being cleaned up. Havilah itself will be able to move forward and rebuild and move on and go through life as it were,” said Havilah resident Mark Carruthers.
Mark Carruthers has lived with his family in Havilah for around eighteen years in a historic house.
“Stone house. Oldest permit is 1932, we’ve always kind of thought it was older than that.”
It burnt down in the Borel Fire - and for months all that remained of the house was the stone facade – but on Monday December 9th - that facade was turned into rubble.
“It is bittersweet just watching the old house and everything with it, you know, hauled out in a pile of rubble. At the same time, it's a necessity for us to move forward. Overall, it's a happy day.”
Carruther is getting his property cleaned by the California Office of Emergency Services Phase Two debris removal program.
Phase One started in August and was the removal of hazardous substances from properties.
“Debris removal really is the first step on the road to recovery once the property owner has lost their house,” said Baylor Cartica, Emergency Services Coordinator for the California Office of Emergency Services.
Cartica tells me that within the Phase Two Process, there are six steps: During the first one a consultant maps the property - The second is asbestos removal.
“The third phase is the actual physical debris mobile which you see here. It's segregated into four way streams and soil, concrete, debris and ash and metals.”
The debris removal itself typically takes two to three days. The comes the soil sampling -
“Once the property is all debris has been removed, they'll take decision unit soil samples. Those will be sent off to a lab.”
The property won’t be cleared until soil tests show it’s safe to rebuild upon.
Step five is erosion control.
“The property gets sprayed down with hydro mulch,” Cartica explained.
The finally step is removal of dangerous trees
The program is at no cost to residents, the state will only take money from insurance if a homeowners insurance has specific funds allocated for debris removal.
Cartica told me that a rough estimate of when the clean-up will be done on Borel Fire properties is March of next year - but for Carruthers that date is much sooner.
“We can't really do much until we get back here, right?” Carruthers said. He plans to move back on the properties in some trailers once it is cleared as safe.
They are currently working on getting permits to build a new house.
“Our target is to try and get those drawings in to the county by end of January,” Carruthers said.
Carruthers saved some stone from the old house, and are going to incorporate it into the landscape.
Although it is the end of a long history of the stone house - it’s also the start of a new history.
Just two days after the physical debris removal process began on his property -Carruthers property now looks like this.
He says he’s sad to lose the historic house but after raising a family of six in a nearly one-hundred year home, there’s some benefits to drafting up plans for a new one.
“So the new house is bigger than this one *laughs* that kind of sums it up right there,” Carruthers said.
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