September 15 Fire Strikes Camp Stevens

Two Julian teenagers pleaded guilty in El Cajon Superior Court to setting a campfire in September that caused the 850-acre Angel Fire, which destroyed one house and a large part of Camp Stevens.

Update Easter 2008 - Rebuilding After the ‘Angel Fire’ by Peter Bergstrom

What a beautiful Easter Sunday we had here with bright green grass in the meadow, lots of manzanita and fruit trees in full bloom, and many charredlive oaks sprouting from the roots!

The lost buildings are slowly coming back as well. Plans are now complete for many of them, but receiving approval from the County Building Department and from Guide One Insurance is taking much longer than we expected. Here is a summary of the status of the various rebuilding projects, pending County approvals:

BISHOP’S LODGE—The plans have been modified to include all current code upgrades and they have been approved by the Building Department. The foundation was tested and found to be in good shape for rebuilding, so the lodge will be rebuilt in its current location. The contractor is ready to begin as soon as Guide One approves the contract.

GIRLS’ HILL CABINS—Plans have been designed to provide more attractive, comfortable, and fire-safe structures. The cabins will sit on new concrete foundations, and will have metal roofs supported by steel posts. The side walls will be made of block or straw bales, finished with waterproof plaster. The front and back of the cabins will be open, like the A-frames, and there will be an opening above the sidewalls and below the roof as well. These will provide better protection from the rain, and should be even cooler than the A-frames.

GIRLS’ HILL BATH HOUSE—The new bath house will have six showers, toilets and wash basins. It will be built on a new foundation with concrete block interior walls and a metal roof. All of the toilet and shower stall doors will open onto a courtyard framed by straw bale privacy walls. The larger courtyard area by the open-air wash basins will become an attractive gathering place with a vine covered trellis, benches and native plants.

LAX-SADLER LODGE—This lodge has been completely redesigned and will be relocated to the hillside beyond the volleyball court and above the archery range. It will have six bedrooms, each sleeping up to six persons in bunk beds. Each bedroom will have a small bathroom and a separate shower room. There will also be a comfortable meeting room that can accommodate up to 40 persons. The new Lax-Sadler Lodge will include the latest materials and design features for maximum energy efficiency. The plans are nearly complete and will be submitted to the Building Department soon.

THE CHAPEL—The outdoor chapel is being redesigned to preserve its simple beauty while making it more comfortable and functional for a variety of group sizes and events. It will be temporarily reconstructed for this spring and summer using planks milled from a very large pine tree that stood near the parking lot. The statue of St. Francis survived the fire, but was knocked down in a wind storm during the Witch Creek Fire in October. It was repaired and given a new, sturdy base during our Thanksgiving Family Camp.

Update 04/04/2008

Spring has arrived and each day is more exciting than the last! Everywhere we look new life is bursting forth. The pond meadow has turned green again and the cottonwood tree beside the pond is beginning to leaf out. Only a week ago, we weren't sure if it had survived the fire. The wild turkeys are doing their mating dances and before long we will be seeing new little poults following along behind their mothers, camouflaged so well that you can barely see them. We are regularly seeing about six deer--2 of which are small youngsters that were born last summer. One staff member sighted a fox last week.

Even in the most heavily burned areas little green things are coming up on the forest floor. Many of the live oaks are sprouting from the roots, along the trunks and new leaves are showing on burned branches.

We had many work groups help out with tree planting, trail reconstruction, the new minifarm below the new office and numerous other projects. Skilled individuals have volunteered their time for electrical wiring, and construction. Many of you have made donations to the Fire Recovery Fund and we hope to raise the remainder needed on Camp Stevens Sundays in April--LA Diocese is April 13 and San Diego Diocese is April 20.

Plans for summer camp are proceeding well--last weekend the Counselor/staff Work Weekend group created an new overnight area in the unburned portion of our property.

Fortunately Camp Stevens was spared from further damage in the recent Witch Fire that ravaged San Diego County. Although Julian residents were asked to evacuate, John, Sherry and Ryan remained on site, knowing that Banner Grade would be a safe escape route to the desert. Power, water and phone were restored after several days and all is well--almost. Our phones are still not working properly.

The camp is looking better. Small green things are beginning to grow in pond meadow and at the base of some burned live oaks, despite the fact that we have had only a tiny bit of rain. A professional work crew spent last week clearing the sites of the burned buildings and hauling away a lot of debris.

We've had a great response to fire recovery fund and to our volunteer work days. Over 125 persons have volunteered so far and we are expecting another big group on November 16. We are overwhelmed with everyone's eagerness to help with the rebuilding. We have a continued need for additional funds to offset the cost of restoration and for additional volunteers. Future work days will be scheduled in 2008--check the website for updates.

October 5-7 we hosted our first weekend groups since the fire. It was good return to normal business and get back into the routine of hosting retreat groups. One San Diego men's group outdid themselves by braving the a-frames on a cold and windy weekend.

Sunday October 7 was our open house for the diocese and first work day. A number of folks attended and we got a start on tearing out dead plants and mulching the garden. Rev. Cathy Gray celebrated the eucharist at a Service of Resurrection. She gave a moving homily and some members of the St. Dunstan's choir who had been evacuated during the fire provided some beautiful music.

This past weekend we had several energetic work parties. One came from Christ Church Coronado that not only brought about 30 people--adults and children--but lots of new tools and a nice donation besides. They cleared a lot of brush and did some erosion control along the road to the dining hall. Thank you Christ Church volunteers!

The others who came included Jenne Bergstrom's birthday party guests who planted native plants next the new office and several former staff from the 70's Vicki (Morris) Greco, Meredith (Shoudy) Riffel and family, and Nancy (Young) Adams and children. They had a lot of fun getting reacquainted while mulching the garden and creating a new path out of wood chips. The garden sustained a lot of damage in the fire and it is nice to see it being repaired and a new native plant garden being created around the new office.

The Camp Stevens Board and staff have decided that rebuilding the chapel is a priority. We welcome your comments and suggestions regarding the design. We are also going ahead with plans to rebuild Bishop's Lodge as soon as possible so that we will have more conference center beds. There is no estimated completion date at present. Bishop's Lodge was a great meeting and sleeping space and our insurance will pay to rebuild it to current code if we build it the same way. Since it was just built in 1991, we still have the original plans. The planning department has indicated that they will process the plans, once submitted, in about a week. That is good news.

Other buildings like Lax-Sadler Lodge, St. Mary's and St. Paul's and the Girls' Hill bathrooms need to be redesigned to be more compatible with current needs. That will come later.

We will be having our annual Thanksgiving Family Camp with limited accommodations. We will make use of the remaining a-frames and Camp Virginia dormitories next door. Advent Camp will not be held this year--sorry!

In case you are wondering, we WILL be having our summer 2008 camping program July 6-August 16.

More work days are scheduled and we hope to see all of you here eventually. We greatly appreciate all the prayers and donations and caring we have received.

Some time has passed and we are started on the road to the rebuilding. Below is our original first posting, but we wanted to give you an update on where we are in the process. We have met with our insurance company and we have that process started. There is a lot of testing to be done to finalize the extent of damage and the clean up process, checking for hazardous materials in the debris and check the slabs for damage. There is no doubt that the re-building process will be a long process, but we hope to get started soon with portions of it, with the chapel and Bishop's Lodge as highest priority.

We have scheduled work days, and you can find out about that on the volunteer link above. We are now able to take on-line donations, also using the link above. There is no doubt that extra funds will be required to complete the repairs, replacement and restoration of the camp, so your generous help is much appreciated.

On Friday September 28, we hosted a dinner for the fire crews that could come. It was a wonderful event, thanking them for their help in saving the camp as well as much of the Julian community. This was a very dangerous fire that went through a heavily residential community, but with very little loss, so we can all be thankful.

Around 1:15 pm on Saturday, September 15, smoke from a small fire was spotted by the staff. 911 was immediately called and the staff began to investigate the source of the smoke. When staff arrived at the fire, near the Tom Scott Mine, it was estimated to be about a 100 feet in diameter. The local fire chief arrived in the camp parking lot, and wanted us to prepare the two groups using the camp to be ready to evacuate if needed. In less than 10 minutes, the fire heated up, grew rapidly, and the evacuation was ordered. When the last of the camp staff left the camp, the meadow between the parking lot and the dining hall was on fire, as well as the area above Peter and Vicki's house.

Fire trucks arrived en mass over the next few minutes, and the fighting effort was on in full force. Bombers and helicopters soon arrived to help fight the fire. The growing fire soon become much larger, reaching beyond Camp Stevens onto a slope of Volcan Mountain. The camp staff and our our two groups watched from the Julian High School parking lot as the fire spread toward the high school and there were large black clouds. We were able to talk to one of the fire fighters at the camp and were informed that Peter and Vicki's house was intact, as well as the other buildings in and north of the parking lot, but that they thought some structures were lost.

That evening around 6:00 pm we were able to speak with a local sheriff's deputy who was able to give us first hand information about the buildings at the camp. We first learned that the Blum Lodge survived, but did have some siding damage and damage to the recently repaired north side deck. We were informed that the pool buildings were intact and that the dining hall was untouched.

Then came the bad news. St. Mary's Cabin, Lax-Sadler Lodge and the Bishop's Lodge were total losses. The deputy was not able to go further south due to the current fire fighting operation. Upon returning to the parking lot, he reported that all of the staff houses and the new office were untouched. Later we learned that several other buildings were lost. Listed below are the buildings that were totally destroyed by the fire:

We thank all the camp staff for their effort in helping our guests leave the camp in a safe and efficient manner. We also thank all of you for your support, in prayer, phone calls and emails.

We will be closed to conference groups for the next two weeks but plan to be operational as soon as possible. Blum Lodge and the dining hall will be usable. We plan to have some temporary housing available for conference groups until we can rebuild. We will be calling all groups with reservations to discuss options.

Our phone service has been restored. If you need to contact the camp directly you may call 760-765-0028 or email us at www.campstevens.org. Thank you!

CAMP STEVENS DAMAGED BY FIRE ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2007

Fire Strikes Camp Stevens--but most is spared!

Fire Recovery Journal

Update 4/22/08

Update 04/04/2008


New Coulter pines are planted	Camp staff photo taken after the fire--ready to rebuild!