Five years since the devastating Gavilan fire, homeowner waiting to rebuild

By: TOM PFINGSTEN - Staff Writer | Tuesday, February 6, 2007 8:51 AM PST ∞

FALLBROOK -- It's been five years since the devastating Gavilan fire, but ashes and rubble still clutter much of Dorothy Roth's property, from rusted shells of appliances to a cinderblock chimney that was finally pulled down a week ago.
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Roth's home was one of 43 destroyed by the 2002 blaze, which started in a De Luz canyon on Feb. 10 and was propelled up the hills into northern Fallbrook by strong Santa Ana winds.

When it was finally contained, the Gavilan fire had burned 5,763 acres and caused millions of dollars' worth of damage.

Though most of the lost homes have been rebuilt, Roth is just now starting to remove the ruins of her 3,400-square-foot home. Her focus since the fire has been on a legal battle with her insurance company that she ultimately lost in court in May 2005.

Despite that setback, a group of volunteers and local businesses will converge on her hilltop property Saturday to prepare the lot for a new home -- smaller, perhaps, but still a home.

Finally, Roth said, she will be able to relax on her property and take in the nearly panoramic view that was forever changed on that February day five years ago.

"I don't want a big house like before, but just a little place to come home to would be great," she said. "I'd just about given up on anything ever happening with it."

Bumpy road to recovery

In an interview with the North County Times shortly after the fire, Roth recounted how she had escaped from her house with seconds to spare when her husband persuaded her to climb down the hill on the west side of their 20-acre property. Flames had already engulfed their driveway, and she said she knew the house would be gone when they came back.

Roth and her husband, Russ Kortlever, lost their home, avocado grove and three pets to the blaze. Over the next several days, the couple's plight took another dark twist that plunged them into a battle with their insurance company.

The pair sued Western Mutual Insurance Co. over a homeowner's policy that the couple had hoped would pay to rebuild their home, valued at about $600,000.

It turned out their policy had lapsed on Jan. 20, 2002, after Roth refinanced her mortgage. She said she was not notified it had expired until Feb. 8, and that she mailed a check to reinstate it on Feb. 9. On Feb. 10, the home burned to the ground. Western Mutual did not receive the check until a week after the blaze.

After a long legal battle, the court eventually sided with the insurance company agreeing that the policy was not in effect when the home burned.

The loss was a bitter pill for Roth. Rather than wallow, however, she continued her work with the upstart fire safety group called the Fallbrook Fire Safe Council, which advocates safety measures such as clearing brush from around houses. She is now the leader of that group.

Roth and her husband have been living in a rental house in Bonsall, but what to do about her own home has weighed heavily on her mind.

"This last year, it's been like, 'What can I do?' " she said. "And the bottom line is, I really can't do too much. I can't afford another big mortgage payment. There's no way."

That's when Sid Morel, fire marshal of Fallbrook's North County Fire Protection District, approached Roth about the possibility of using volunteer help to clean the property and resurrect a home.

Morel said that he felt compelled to help Roth because of her work with the Fallbrook Fire Safe Council.

"She does a tremendous amount of volunteer work in our community that's really helped to make it a lot safer than it was five years ago," he said. "Hearing that her house still hadn't been rebuilt, I thought it would be a good project, that the fire district and the community could give something back to her for her efforts."

A fresh start

On Saturday, the five-year anniversary of the Gavilan fire, crews will begin clearing the twisted remains of Roth's old home and loading it into a dump truck to make way for a new spot that will hold the foundation of the new home.

The floor plan for the house is still being developed, but Roth estimates that it will be around 1,800 square feet.

She said construction will be funded in part by volunteer labor and discounted materials, and that she and Kortlever will be paying for some portion.

How much "is hard to say, because so much is going to be volunteered," she said. "It will be a step-by-step thing, as we get to each stage."

Morel said some of the volunteers Saturday will come from the district's Fire Explorers program for high school-age "junior firefighters." Others will come from the local Community Emergency Response Team, coordinated by North County Fire, and a few local businesses such as Fallbrook Equipment Rentals and Fallbrook Oil will pitch in, too, he said.

Some work has already begun. On Jan. 28, Butch Ayres of A&W Grading & Paving Co. chained his tractor to the last standing piece of the Roths home -- the chimney, jutting into the sky like a monument -- and pulled it down.

"We've known Dorothy for about 25 years," said Ayres, one of many local volunteers and business owners expected to pitch in this year to help Roth rebuild. "We're all out here trying to get her a house again, poor thing."

-- Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 731-5799 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.

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