McKENZIE VALLEY — Just across the historic Goodpasture Covered Bridge near Vida is a property that Geff Gravitt has resided on for the past two and a half years.
He walks the property that his white and beige RV is parked on while his dogs, Lily and Lulu, patrol the area. His wife, Tammy, keeps a watchful eye on them.
On a slab of white concrete, Gravitt maps out the future location of where his home will stand. Plans for a soaking tub are in store and his hopes for a space he can truly call home are high.
Geff Gravitt walks through the RV he has been living in for the past five years after his home burned down in the Holiday Farm Fire. Gravitt and others in the McKenzie Valley have faced difficulties in rebuilding and securing homes since the 2020 fire.
Gravitt grew up in the Santa Clara area and has many fond memories of the McKenzie River. After retiring from the military, he bought a cabin with a river view in 2010. A trove of wildlife was all around him, just as he wanted it to be. He called the McKenzie River his “favorite place on the planet.”
Around 1 a.m. on Sept. 8, 2020, Gravitt awoke to the sound of a bullhorn. First responders were issuing evacuation orders to leave immediately as the Holiday Farm Fire blazed a destructive path through the valley.
“I walked out to the back of my deck and I saw both sides of the river on fire coming at me,” Gravitt said, noting he felt “total terror” at the sight of the fire. “I walked to my front porch and I looked out and I saw the mountain on fire.”
The tranquil space, which he said was nicknamed the “iron forest” because it had never burned down, was aflame.
He had just enough time to grab two of everything he thought he might need before he evacuated.
The Holiday Farm Fire burned more than 173,000 acres, claimed one life and forever changed the McKenzie River communities of Leaburg, Vida, Nimrod, Finn Rock and Blue River.
Five years after the fire, these communities are still working to rise from the ashes.
Delays in distribution of funding to help impacted households and issues that have slowed construction have left some still living in RVs.
Gravitt’s 1932 cabin was one of the 517 homes lost in the fire. In the five years since, he’s lived in a trailer and later an RV while awaiting access to more stable housing.
Gravitt was a major player in community recovery as residents worked to pick up the pieces post-disaster. Other organizations, like Locals Helping Locals and the McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group, have also stepped up to share resources, connect support networks and bring people home safely.
How the McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group is supporting fire survivors
One nonprofit assisting these upriver communities with recovery efforts is the McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group, which works with partner organizations to assist fire survivors with resources and help toward mending ties severed by the fire.
Mary Ellen Wheeler, program manager for the group, said funding for fire recovery support came from Oregon Housing and Community Services.
Wheeler said the organization received $1.7 million in Homeowner Assistance and Reconstruction Program funds to move affected families into stable housing. As of Sept. 4, the recovery group has placed 11 modular housing units with a goal to place its 12th home — one that will be Gravitt’s — before the end of the month.
Geff Gravitt discusses his evacuation during the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire. Five years later, Gravitt is still living in an RV.
She said when the group was established in March 2021, there were 88 people living in RVs on their properties.
Wheeler said funding has taken a long time to reach impacted households because the programs available to provide support were functional in theory but slow to execute.
She said federal money goes to the state with stipulations attached, which then distributes those funds to other groups, also with parameters for how the money can be used.
Wheeler said these layers of regulation make it so “basically, the money does not get to the fire survivors,” because more time was spent outlining ways the funds can’t be used than time was spent providing relief to communities.
“If we would have had this money, we would have had people (housed) within six or eight months after the fire,” Wheeler said. “If that money could instantly go in to do a program like this in other disasters, it would be huge where you’re not waiting five years to get people home.”
Now, the list of people living in RVs is down to 10 clients.
Devin Thompson, executive director of McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group, said that those households are going into their sixth winters without stable housing and that “even one is too many” to have living in RVs.
He said a major focus of the group has been on how to not only support recovery locally but on how to help other rural communities establish essential relationships for themselves before disaster strikes.
“Here in the McKenzie Valley, even though we’re not recovered yet, they’re already looking at ‘how do we help someone else?’” Thompson said. “There is 517 homes that were lost. There will be people recovered, ‘we’re fine, we’re good.’ You check those boxes off. Until you can check all 517, recovery does not end.”
Fire survivors still taking it day by day five years after Holiday Farm Fire disaster
Deep in the throes of construction chaos, Lindsay Royals walks through the wooden frame of her partially rebuilt home, showing where the kitchen will stand and which bedroom her family members are fighting over access to once the home is complete.
She has been residing in a 25-year-old trailer on their property with her husband, two dogs, three cats and 12 chickens while the rebuild of their home takes place.
They moved to the Vida area in 2018, returned to their property after the fire in April 2021 and had their permit to rebuild their home issued in October of the same year.
The rebuild of Royals’ home has encountered many stalls over the years.
Royals said their first contractor was fraudulent, costing them $100,000 for work that wasn’t completed, and the second contractor installed the floor joists incorrectly.
After that, her husband and a friend experienced in homebuilding took over the rebuild.
Wheeler connected Royals to a contractor to help finish the project, but the rollercoaster isn’t over yet.
Lindsay Royals, left, signs paperwork for her home rebuild as Mary Ellen Wheeler, program manager for the McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group, offers advice. Royals has been living in a trailer since her home burned down five years ago.
In what will eventually be Royals’ kitchen, Wheeler broke the news to her that the installation of the roof has been postponed. Royals sheds tears at the news but it doesn’t change her outlook of waiting things out until they improve.
“It’s not a great feeling, but I still feel more hopeful than I have, so that’s about where I’m at. It’s been long, it’s been hard, but in the end, it will be better,” Royals said. “It’s just been a lot and I’m really ready to live normally. We lived in this house for two years before the fire and now we’ve been out of it for five. I’d like my life to keep going. I just feel stuck.”
Wheeler is working so the situation can be resolved before the end of September and said the contractor helping the Royals now can install the roof during a break in rainy weather once current hurdles are jumped.
For Royals, waiting these issues out on her rural property is worth the freedom it gives her.
“We’ve always wanted to be outside of town, we didn’t want to live in town. I will never live in town again. I try to stay away from town,” Royals said. “I work on the river, I live on the river, I’m OK with that. It’s a nice place, even when tragedy happens.”
Mary Ellen Wheeler, right, program manager for the McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group, and Lindsay Royals stand in Royals’ half finished home on Sept. 4. Royals home burned down in the Holiday Farm Fire and she and her husband are still living in a trailer five years later due to a slew of contractor issues.
In Gravitt’s case, the property he owns now is not where his cabin once stood.
When he looked into rebuilding on his cabin property, he was faced with code compliance barriers that made it nearly impossible to put new construction on the land.
Between setbacks from roadways at the front of the property and required distances from the river his cabin formerly abutted, Gravitt ended up selling the property valued at around $100,000 for $60,000, buying an RV to move into instead of a 20-foot trailer and settling down on another property near a creek.
This space, across the Goodpasture Covered Bridge, is where his new home will be delivered.
The home, provided by rehousing funds facilitated through partnership with McKenzie Valley Long Term Recovery Group, is set for delivery in mid-September.
After six delivery reschedules, Gravitt is hopeful this attempt to place the home will be the final one.
Even after experiencing the loss of “every single thing that I owned or was important to me,” he said he feels “McKenzie strong,” and that his faith in religion and community help keep him living in the present as recovery continues.
“I can tell you that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” Gravitt said. “I am super excited that the Lord and the McKenzie River Long Term Recovery Group has blessed me with being able to receive another house.”
Geoff Gravitt has been living in an RV for the past five years after his house burned down in the Holiday Farm Fire. Logistical issues have delayed the delivery of his new home, which will go on this concrete pad.
Hannarose McGuinness is The Register-Guard’s growth and development reporter. You can reach her at hmcguinness@registerguard.com.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Some residents remain in trailers, RVs after 2020 Holiday Farm Fire