Although a fire takes a house in minutes or hours, the realities of losing that home continue for years. Here is how to be most helpful during the recovery.

9 Practical Bits of Tenderness: How to Help Folks Who Lost Home to Fire

by Pamela Smallwood

January 18, 2022

In 2011, my husband and I lost our home, and all its contents, to wildfire – similarly to the folks who recently lost their homes in the Boulder area. We’d just finished a day of yard work when we learned of fire in the area and received an order to evacuate within 30 minutes.

Like all tragedies, unless you personally experience it, there’s no way to understand the range of emotions one feels as the event unfolds, or in the initial weeks and even years thereafter. The same conundrum holds true for what survivors really need, and yet that inexperience doesn’t keep people from wanting to help – and that’s a beautiful thing. There are many reputable emergency assistance organizations that can do a lot with your financial donations, and this is a great way to help folks you don’t know personally.

In addition to that avenue, here are a few ways you can help your survivor-friends. I think of these as practical bits of tenderness:

Immediate Help

●      Housing: This is an obvious one, but how to help with housing can be a head scratcher. Your survivor-friend’s biggest and most immediate need is where to live while deciding next steps. The best gift we received was when our daughter offered to research the real estate scene for available rentals, organize the hunt and narrow the list for our viewing within a couple days of losing our home.  Seventeen thousand homes burned in our wildfire, so the demand for rentals was beyond imagination, and with everything else on our plate, doing the necessary research seemed insurmountable and highly emotional. If you have a room to offer, or can assist with a hotel, while helping a friend find a rental, even better.

●      Gift cards: Flexible gift cards (i.e., VISA, Mastercard) are the most helpful immediate support. Gift cards to specific stores, and especially high-priced retail outlets where the dollar simply doesn’t go as far or where the practicality of the moment is lost, are not as helpful. With gift cards that can be used anywhere, survivors can begin to rebuild wardrobes, purchase household comforts best selected personally, and find momentary escape from reality with a meal out or an evening at the theater. 

●      Reconsider your first instinct: Despite good intentions, boxes full of random clothing and household items can be more of a burden than help. When you are literally without a home, bags of stuff become one more thing to tote. A call ahead to your survivor-friend, or to someone close to them, to inquire about their specific needs and circumstances goes a long way. For example, are they already settled in a semi-permanent place, or do they have another move coming soon? We spent our first night on the floor of a friend’s empty apartment, and the next two weeks in another friend’s unoccupied, fully furnished apartment before moving into a fully furnished rental for a year. So, we were transient for three weeks, and not resettled again for a little over a year. 

Once Folks are Resettled

●      Photos: In today’s digitized world, it’s easy to forget that most folks still have irreplaceable paper photos from the years prior to digital cameras. For some, these are among the hardest items to lose. If you have even one photo that includes friends or family of your survivor-friend, send it to them (or digitize it). You cannot imagine the joy of this gift when your own photo family history lays in ash. 

●      Heirlooms: The priceless things that get passed down in families are important because they’re attached to significant memories and relationships. Parting with your grandmother’s quilt, dish or tablecloth will bring such comfort to your survivor-friend so they may enjoy the tangible evidence of particular family eras once again. The most meaningful gift I received was my mother’s 1950’s sewing machine. Another favorite was a tiny blown-glass pitcher that had belonged to the grandmother of a friend of mine. While it didn’t come from my own grandmother, she lived in the same era, and it allowed me to reminisce. Yet another, much older friend gave me her grandmother’s sherbert cups. These are not practical gifts, yet they allowed me to begin new stories and memories as we worked to turn a new place into home.

●      Artwork: Like clothing and household items, art is personal and requires some conversation to ensure you’re gifting something that will bring joy to a person. We were fortunate to have had a number of pieces of art from my husband’s mother. After the fire, her daughter shared some similar pieces from their mother’s home. We were also able to find the artist online of two pieces my husband and I purchased as newlyweds nearly forty years earlier.  At that time, the artist was an unknown art student and my husband was still in college.  Finding the artist, seeing how she’d flourished and being the recipient of her generosity (she had and gave to us the “artist’s proofs” of our two pieces) all these years later, was balm to our souls needed in the months after the fire. Practical needs are more important initially, but over the months and years to come, remember your friend is still grieving the loss of many less practical items. 

General Advice

●      Check your adages at the door: Whether you’re writing a note, text or actually talking to your survivor-friend, someone who’s lost everything does not need to hear about what they didn’t lose. Leave unsaid sentiments such as, “At least you still have each other,” and, “What’s most important is you got out.” Believe me, they know that – and right or wrong, hearing it minimizes the very real tangible losses they’re navigating.

●      Imagine yourself in their shoes: Someone who has lost their home, and all its contents, will spend their next days, months, and years, opening drawers to grab something specific, only to realize they no longer have it.  It is no longer in the back of that kitchen drawer, or on the floor in the hall closet, or in the buffet cabinet set far to the back on the right-hand side.  A helpful analogy is to think about when you lose power at home, yet you continue to flip light switches on as you go room to room. The same muscle memory exists after losing your home to fire – but unlike power, which will eventually be restored, the material things that made up the fabric and flow of one’s life, cannot be. Whether the item your friend reaches for was particularly significant to them or simply practical, that experience is a reminder of all that was lost. More than materials, they lost their sense of stability, safety, and ease. Having even one friend who understands that – and who acknowledges it – can make a world of difference.

●      Home didn’t burn, but neighborhood charred? If you have friends or family who didn’t lose their home, but now live across the street from an entire neighborhood gone due to fire, they need our help too. They do not need to hear how lucky they are (they know that, and yet they are in a uniquely unsettling situation, too). They need us to ask what we can do to help them adjust to their post-fire world. Do they need assistance with clean-up around their property, planting trees and seedlings? Imagine standing at their kitchen window or sitting on their porch. Would a birdbath or bench bring some comfort? What might you offer to soften their view? 

Although a fire takes a house in minutes or hours, the realities of losing that home continue for years. Recognition of this fact may be the biggest gift you can give to your survivor-friend. Even a decade later, there will not be a day your friend isn’t faced with at least one moment of feeling some loss. While you may feel helpless, or uncertain of where to assist, there’s a number of simple things within your power that can bring tremendous comfort to your survivor-friend.