On the eve of New Year’s Eve 2021, the quiet suburban community northwest of Denver, Colorado, was shattered by the Marshall Fire. Driven by fierce winds, the wildfire tore through neighborhoods and cul-de-sacs, leaving devastation in its wake.

Melanie Glover was stuck in traffic as the fire raged, her husband and children trapped in their burning home. Helpless, Glover watched in horror as her family narrowly escaped the flames. In the weeks that followed, the initial shock gave way to deep-seated trauma. Drawing from her past experiences living in Hurricane Alley, Glover tried to endure the pain alone, but it wasn’t enough.

What ultimately helped her move forward were the stories of survivors from another “wildland-urban interface” fire that had ravaged Colorado Springs a decade earlier: the Waldo Canyon Fire. These stories, shared through online communities, provided Glover with the support and hope she needed to rebuild. Three years later, Glover and hundreds of other Marshall Fire survivors have taken on a new role: guiding and supporting Los Angeles-area residents recovering from the recent urban wildfires.

“It’s very important that people get the support and love they need in the first few months after a fire,” Glover told. “Everyone feels like they get forgotten about. It’s the nature of a natural disaster: We just move on to the next one and then the next one.” But it’s the community that doesn’t forget, she added. “It’s the community that comes together and supports you in the long term.”

A week after the Palisades and Eaton fires, Julie DiBiase, a Boulder resident who had lived in LA for 20 years, created the “From the Mountains to the Beach” Facebook group. Intended as a bridge between Marshall Fire victims and those affected by the California fires, the group quickly grew to over 1,400 members.

“The group I created is really intended to be a survivor-to-survivor advice group,” DiBiase said. “There are a zillion lists out there where you can get information about different resources for people who have experienced loss; but there’s something different and unique to having gone through it and really understanding others.”

Pasadena resident Anna Ballou stumbled upon DiBiase’s Facebook group while frantically searching for information on recovering from a wildfire. The Eaton Fire had narrowly spared her family’s rental home, but it was covered in a toxic mix of soot, ash, and chemicals from firefighting efforts. “We’re all afraid of the toxicity and how it could affect our health,” Ballou said. “I think that people who are renting with intact homes are in an awkward category. You’re at somebody else’s mercy. You have to live in that home, and they don’t.”

Through the Facebook group, Ballou was able to connect directly with others who had navigated similar situations three years earlier. “It’s so bittersweet,” Ballou said, “but because of the Marshall Fire survivors, we’re much more educated about what steps to take.”

Altadena resident Kate Adams Barnett, who also had health concerns about her family’s rental home, found solace in connecting with another single mom who had faced similar issues during the Marshall Fire. “It’s really hard when you have kids and you’re the decision-maker and their health is at risk,” Adams Barnett said. “She actually gave me a lot of hope and courage and told me to reach out to her anytime. She’d been through exactly what I was going through.”

When DiBiase started the survivor-to-survivor group, she drew inspiration from another group formed in the immediate aftermath of the Marshall Fire. The Marshall Fire Community Facebook group, started by Colorado resident Meryl Suissa, was initially a direct donor-to-survivor exchange group.

Not only did it remain active, but Suissa also replicated the concept for California survivors in need. “The most important takeaways I have from falling into disaster recovery, and the main thing we have all learned over the past three years, is that the majority of recovery comes from the people, the community,” Suissa said. “It’s the community that steps up and gives individual physical donations and monetary donations, it is the small businesses and religious and nonprofit organizations that show up in a big way.”

Suissa’s role in the California fire recovery efforts has been more advisory, focusing on resource compilation and using hindsight from what worked and what didn’t three years ago.

She has also adapted to the unique needs of the LA community, including co-founding a Judaica replacement program. “We need one central location where survivors know to go for information post-disaster,” Suissa wrote via email.

“After every disaster, there needs to be one place that is a central hub for donors and distribution sites to contact, that creates a website and sends weekly emails regarding logistical updates such as debris removal, town hall meetings, etc., that creates a Slack group, and that creates a Facebook group that is a ‘buy nothing’ post-fire group.”

In the near term, Marshall Fire survivors like Glover hope to continue sharing their experiences and actions to help LA residents move forward and rebuild. Glover, for example, is sharing how she rebuilt her Louisville, Colorado, home using Colorado Earth’s EcoBlox, which are made from earth, clay, and other fire-resistant and sustainable materials.

She’s also researching how Earth homes can be adapted to meet California-specific building regulations. “When people think ‘Earth home,’ they think of these crazy, weird, very eccentric things,” Glover said. “And what I tried to prove is that I wanted to build a cookie-cutter home in a cookie-cutter neighborhood that actually isn’t a cookie-cutter home. And I did it.”

In sharing her rebuilding efforts, Glover said she’s found a way to turn her “pain into purpose,” a concept she heard several years ago from yoga teacher and activist Seane Corn.

“Her words were, ‘find your pain, and you find your purpose in life,’” Glover said. “My pain was being completely out of control of what was happening to my family. That was my pain, and so then it gave me a purpose: Now I see that I want to talk to people about rebuilding this way, because I feel it’s really important that people know there are other options.”

The story of Glover and her fellow survivors is one of resilience and community. In the face of unimaginable loss, they have found strength in sharing their experiences and supporting others. Their efforts highlight the importance of community in disaster recovery, where the bonds forged in the ashes of destruction can become the foundation for a brighter future.

As the Extreme Weather Survivors network continues to grow, it serves as a beacon of hope for those affected by wildfires and other natural disasters. By creating a centralized hub for information, resources, and support, survivors can navigate the complex journey of rebuilding with the knowledge that they are not alone. The lessons learned from the Marshall Fire and other disasters underscore the power of community and the enduring human spirit.

In the end, it is the community that remembers, that supports, and that helps rebuild. For survivors like Glover, the journey from ashes to resilience is not just about rebuilding homes; it’s about rebuilding lives. Through their shared experiences, they have discovered that even in the darkest of times, there is always a way forward. And in that realization, they have found not just their purpose, but their future.