Elizabeth Martin found her class ring. She also found a promise ring her husband had given her 10 years ago. Her husband, Jon, found his grandfather's antique watch, a family heirloom.

They're melted out of shape.

Their American flag, which had been waving outside their home when the Mountain fire hit, survived. It had blown into a nearby ditch.

But nothing else is left.

A few miles over, Jo Wells hasn't had the big cry yet. You know the one. The 74-year-old also hasn't been able to sift through the ashes that were once her home. She wants to, but she has to wait for the insurance agent to come survey the scene before she and her husband, Bill, are allowed to go picking through the mess.

And Penn and Susan Lenson figure, heck, they can get all new stuff.

They'll have to. Nothing is left.

The stories are all painful for the victims of the Mountain fire, out for a week now, after torching 16 homes, 82 other structures and 10,000 acres.

But the fire, which burned in the hills east of Lake Skinner about nine miles from Temecula, is only the beginning of the struggle. Now comes the process of putting the lives back together.

Sifting though the ruins

For the Martins, that part has already begun. The young family -- he's 29, she's 26 and they have 7-month-old twins -- was given the go-ahead by their insurance company to sift through the ruins.

Elizabeth Martin said they do plan to rebuild, and even upgrade from the double-wide mobile home they had. This time, they will built a house. In the meantime, the family is staying with Elizabeth's parents in Temecula.

Likewise, the Lensons are also full-speed ahead on the rebuild.

There have been speed bumps, Penn Lenson said. There was that day that his bank put a 14-day hold on the check the insurance company gave them as emergency money. That's the kind of thing his insurance company told him simply shouldn't happen, the 56-year-old said.

When the fire was racing toward their home, the couple loaded up the jewelry, the valuables, the mementos in the truck. They had a little bit of time.

But then the wind shifted and suddenly, the flames were swirling and the wind was whipping. The house caught fire. They fled in separate cars, each thinking the other had taken the truck with the valuables. Neither had. It all burned.

For the Wells family, the devastation hit particularly hard. Three generations of the family lived in separate residences on their property. Jo and Bill Wells, both 74, lost their home.

So did each of their grandsons and their new brides -- one couple married in June, the other in August. The wedding presents are ashes now.

Also gone are the quilts Jo Wells' mother had given her.

The entire family is in a holding pattern, can't do much until their insurance agent surveys the damage. That, Wells said, should happen this weekend.

And the fellow members of the Mormon church are doing what they can to help out, holding a "fire shower" for the family. The family registered at various stores in the area, and the church is encouraging people to buy the family items on their registry.

In fact, all three families gush with thank-yous for the emotional and material support that has poured forth since the fire.

Disintegrated

It's amazing what a fire will do. Where a home once stood, there are only ashes. Occasionally, you see signs of what must have been there before. The springs of a mattress -- or is that a couch? -- the metal lump of a refrigerator. At Wells' home, the dishwasher melted away, but wire shelves once inside it somehow remain, as do a few of the ceramic mugs they held.

The walls? Disintegrated. Not a hint of them. And its a little eerie to look at the damage, because the outline of the home, the footprint, is blackened and covered. But the charring ends where the house used to end.

Doctor Ivan Gendzel is one of the psychiatrists assigned by the Red Cross to help out fire victims, and he said that for some people, when the mementos burned, so did a part of the victims emotional identities.

Finding the right thing to say to the fire victims can be tough, but the most appropriate social response is also the natural one -- the "I'm sorry for your loss" that people usually and sincerely spill forth, he said.

Just allow the victims to grieve and support them, the psychiatrist said.

"The most important message is that life goes on," Gendzel said. "It will all be OK."

Emotional rebuild

"The most interesting piece of the emotional recovery is after all the media attention goes away and the rest of the world thinks the disaster is over," said Red Cross spokeswoman Nancy Rappaport. "It becomes this insurmountable thing they have to do and they feel like nobody cares."

Also, she said, the help available after the first phase of the fire sets unrealistic expectations that lead the victims to believe "the help is going to be there forever." That's when disillusionment sets in.

"It's the toughest phase to get through," Rappaport said. "Once they are on the other side (of that phase), that's when they begin to heal."

Of course, it varies from person to person, but that phase can last for a few weeks, she said.

In this phase, Dr. Gendzel said, fire victims may suffer appetite changes and eating problems. They are also more likely to quickly fall ill with a cold or such in the weeks after a fire, since their immune system has suffered a shock, he said.

In the early days after the fire, even the most simple tasks -- like, say, going to buy underwear -- can suddenly be overwhelming, Gendzel said.

The weeks that follow

The days of a fire victim are filled with replacing the essentials. Eyeglasses, medications, driver's licenses, even underwear and soap.

"All these things you take for granted that you use, that's what wears on you. The inconvenience," Lenson said. "A toothbrush, a towel and bar of soap. You don't think about those things."

In the past few days, after they found a house to rent for the time being, the couple headed into Wal-Mart. And $1,000 later, they walked out with some of the necessities.

"We are slowly putting the pieces back together," he said. "My philosophy is you can't dwell on it."

And then there's the task of finding a place to live on a semi-permanent basis until they can rebuild their home.

There's also the challenges associated with any move. The house the Lensons moved into didn't have any electricity or phone service. That takes time. It all takes time.

The Lensons have a list they make of tasks to get done. Not all of the items are checked off yet and the list grows every day. There are tears, but they cope.

"We don't take this lightly, but we are on the positive side," Lenson said. "We are just thankful to be alive. If I'd been in the house 45 seconds longer, I might be dead.

"It's all gone and there is nothing we can do to change it. Our team lost. Now we have to move forward."

Jo Wells comes out every day to look at the remains of her home, the place she had lived for nine years.

"But it's just stuff," she said. "We've got each other, we've got the church. We've got our loved ones. We just have to be grateful."

For Elizabeth Martin, the tears come at night, after the babies have gone to sleep.

"There are a couple of days when it hits me," Elizabeth Martin said, "and I just want to go back to the time before this happened.The hardest thing I've ever had to do was go through the ashes of my life."

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or tfigueroa@californian.com.