The Park Fire has sent homeowners falling through the state’s shredded safety net.

By Caroline Mimbs Nyce

Susie Lawing moved to Cohasset, a small community located in the forested canyons above the city of Chico, California, in the 1970s. After she and her husband divorced, Lawing stayed, presiding over 26 acres of lush family compound. Loved ones built homes of their own on the property, and they began hosting weddings and retreats. Lawing started to grow her own food.

All of that is now gone, she told me. Two weeks ago, the Park Fire ripped through the property. Lawing, now 81, lost everything. She did not have insurance. Lawing lives modestly on Social Security benefits, supplemented by renting out her home and selling essential oils, and simply could not afford the $12,000 a year—$1,000 a month—home-insurance policy she was quoted for a state-backed policy, the last resort for many homeowners. Paying that would have doubled her monthly expenses. “There was no way I could afford that,” she told me. “What do you do? You just let it go.”

Now the family faces the prospect of rebuilding without a safety net. Lawing’s daughter has set up a GoFundMe page for her. (Her grandson Myles Lawing also has a GoFundMe set up for his dad, who had an uninsured home on the property.) Others on the crowdfunding site are raising money for families who’d lost their homes to fire once before, when just six years ago, the deadly Camp Fire raged through the town of Paradise, just 30 minutes down the road. Some Paradise families, such as the Bakers, chose to resettle in Cohasset, only to have their new home burn.