Jazmin Hamburg feeds her baby, calls to her 4-year-old son not to fuss with his breathing mask or wander too far and listens for her name to be called.
Maybe, this time, she’ll make the list of evacuees who get free gas cards before the donations run out again.
In the week since the Camp Fire took most everything the 25-year-old mother owned, Jazmin’s gone from staying with a friend to sleeping in her car with her children at a Chico Walmart.
The store’s parking lot and an adjacent field became an encampment for families amid chaos, crisis and widespread need. In the days after the fire, evacuees discovered nearly 10,000 homes were destroyed by fire, dozens of people had been trapped and killed by flames and there was no knowing when anyone could go home. California’s deadliest wildfire had wiped out whole towns, forcing the evacuation of some 50,000 people.
Jazmin showed up at the camp with her sons because it’s where her old roommates have been staying. She thought she’d found a place to be with friends.
Then the signs were posted Thursday: “THIS SITE WILL BE CLOSING SUNDAY AT 1 P.M.”
Families who found a sense of community and compassion at the camp outside a chain store were distraught Thursday night. They don’t want to relocate. Not again.
Officials said the move is for safety reasons. Temperatures are dropping into the 30s, rain is on the horizon and agencies need to connect families with health and other services that are provided at official shelters.
But Jazmin can’t take anymore. She’s not alone.
“One of the biggest issues we are having right now with help and support is the fact that, yes, we’re aware it’s going to rain, but where is everybody going to go,” she says, her voice rising with frustration and fear.
She motions at the people living in the field of tents surrounding her in the dry-grass field. Her eyes dart back to her children.
Evacuations remain in place as officials clean up and continue the search and recovery of remains within the destroyed zone. On Thursday, officials placed the number of dead at 63 and, the count of missing skyrocketed to 631. Nearly 12,000 structures have been destroyed, including 9,700 single-family homes and another 118 multi-family homes.
President Donald Trump, after criticizing California officials and threatening via tweet to withhold assistance, approved federal major disaster relief earlier this week. Critics say he wasted critical time when thousands of Northern California families needed immediate support.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has launched an online system for registering evacuees and is opening a physical site Friday at an old Sears store in the Chico Mall.
Jazmin remembers the evacuation, the lack of warning and the call from her sister: The fire’s out control! Get out now!
“Everything was chaos,” she says. Since evacuating, she’s gone from one crisis to the next.
Lucas, the four-year-old, is running in the field — past tents, camping chairs, piles of belongings — with his dinosaur toy, flying it through the smoky air. Jazmin, her eyes red from soot and tears, sits on the grass, wondering how she’ll get gas and food for her kids, and where she’ll go next.
‘They have nothing else’
Strangers from the community say they came together at the Chico chain store to fill in the gaps when local and state agencies struggled to provide services to everyone in need.
After the fire, volunteers collected a mass of donations, sectioning off areas in the parking lot for free clothing, food and other necessities. A tent city, run by volunteers and those living at the camp, developed. People living in trailers and their cars took refuge at the site. The space drew national attention on social media and donations came from across Butte County, California and the U.S.
A sign: "WE WANT YOU ALL SAFE & WARM SO PLEASE ASK US ABOUT SHELTER INFORMATION.”
Jazmin holds an applesauce pouch to her 10-month-old son’s mouth as he kicks his feet, itching to get out of his car seat. When she’s not holding her baby, Jazmin keeps him buckled in the seat on the grass, so he stays out of the way of kids playing and adults at the camp.
She knows the camp is not the best option for her children, for anyone’s children. But it’s a place to stay rooted, and she feels lost.
“There are many people out here with families… little kids that have no way to keep them occupied and safe, this is what they’re doing, sitting in car seats all day,” she says, her face twisted in desperation. “This is what they have. They have nothing else.”
Jazmin keeps Lucas’ Spiderman jacket zipped up to stave off the cold. Her baby, dressed in fuzzy green onesie pajamas, holds his fist to his mouth and looks at his mama.
It was only supposed to be temporary
Some people turned to the camp because the shelters were full. Others had dogs or weren’t comfortable confined in a traditional shelter.
“It’s a short-term location for people to stay but it’s not sustainable long term so we want to transition people to warmer, safer locations,” said Jessica Busick, 33.
Busick and her husband Rob, 36, helped manage the camp. People donating from across California wanted evacuees to know they’re not alone, she said. Now, the critical need is for donated gas cards, she says, to help people who’ve run out of cash get to another shelter or to a friend or family member who doesn’t live nearby.
A sign: “BUTTE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS – GRIDLEY HAVE 200 BEDS AVAILABLE!!! DOGS OKAY! ASK ABOUT TRANSPORTATION!”
Thursday night, volunteers and officials urged people at the camp to transition to a shelter shielded from the rain and easy to reach as FEMA begins providing federal disaster assistance to displaced families. Clothing donations would be removed Friday, free food would be served through Sunday.
Volunteers and officials are providing transportation to shelters. But shelter space remains limited.
“There’s only two still open,” says a volunteer standing at a table Thursday night with the list of open shelters and gas cards for evacuees who made the cut before the free donations ran out.
Thursday night’s shelter list noted that nine of 11 shelters, three accepting animals, were full.
The only site still accepting dogs was the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley. The small town of about 7,000 is a 40-minute drive south of Chico. A VFW in Los Molinos, which is about 30 minutes north of Chico, also had room, but not for animals.
Jazmin knows her home is gone, but she worries — Gridley feels too far from everything and everyone she knows.
Nightmares and make-believe
For many, the shelters in Gridley and Los Molinos would separate them from ongoing job searches and a nexus of displaced friends and neighbors staying in Chico.
Evacuees living with trauma and immeasurable loss say they need to be near people who understand what they’re going through and offer emotional support.
A sign: Missing Judy Burgess. Paradise, CA.
Jazmin is still having nightmares about escaping the fire. She still doesn’t understand why she never heard a warning in her hometown of Magalia to evacuate. And though she doesn’t know where she’ll go, she still hasn’t signed up for FEMA assistance.
“I’ve never been dependent on anybody,” she says.
She worries about families staying at the camp who don’t have transportation. Jazmin made it out with her car.
“Most of these people can’t even get to Gridley,” she says. “We’re blessed. We’re one of the luckier ones, where we have a vehicle right here. But not all these people have vehicles.”
A group of firefighters from the Turlock Fire Department, volunteers helping contain the blaze, arrive at the camp. They smile and say hello to Lucas. The little boy looks up and stares wide-eyed at their uniforms. One firefighter asks how old Lucas is and if he’s Spiderman, a nod to the little boy’s superhero hoodie.
“Four,” says Lucas, leaning against his mom’s old roommate, reaching out his hand to shake the fireman’s.
Night is falling. It’s cold. Jazmin’s wrapping a red blanket over her baby. Her name is called for a free gas card.
“Thank God,” she says, closing her eyes just for a moment before she gathers her children.
She lifts her baby, still in his car seat, and takes Lucas by the hand. A stranger handing out free knitted caps hands one to Jazmin. She pulls it over Lucas’s head, and says, “Don’t take it off.” Lucas squinches his face in disapproval.
Jazmin walks her sons to a nearby table where a volunteer is giving out gas cards and shelter information. A man with a red clown nose is standing nearby, making balloon figurines for kids.
A little boy, not much older than Lucas, is waiting for a gold balloon in the shape of sword. Lucas is watching, standing next to his baby brother and holding onto his mom’s arm.
“Here you go,” the man says, handing the finished sword to the little boy, who had made friends with Lucas at the camp. The boy looks at his balloon, then at his friend and says: “Lucas, you want it?”
Lucas nods his head but doesn’t let go of his mom. The boy hands Lucas the balloon and turns back the balloon-maker.
“Can I have one more cause I gave mine to him?” he asks.
The balloon maker gets to work again.
Finally, Lucas lets go of his mom. The two little boys who lost their homes in a deadly fire are suddenly pirates at battle with balloon swords.
Jazmin thanks the woman who gave her a free gas card. She stops to watch her son.
She’s not sure if she’ll stay the night, but for the moment, Lucas is OK.