BILLINGS — As the devastation in California continues from the wildfires, Petra Wolfe watches from afar in Roundup as the town she grew up in burns.
On Monday, her brother sent her a photo of their childhood home in Malibu that had burned down.
“My dad built the decks and he built a hot tub with a little roof over it in the back. And, you know, he built the retail. I mean, everything that's there, he pretty much built,” Wolfe said. “It was, you know, but it was a great house. We had some, I got married there. Yeah, I got married there.”
Living in California for much of her life, she said fires were expected. In 1993, a fire almost burned down the home.
“We grew up having fires every few years, but not like this," Wolfe said. "I mean, it looks like a war zone. And I thought that's what it felt like when I went back after the '93 (fire) and took a walk up the hill and I have pictures of all the destruction from that fire. And we thought, wow, this is awful. Nothing can compare to this.”
She remembers growing up and dealing with the fires and Santa Ana winds.
"I've only remember one or two that you could really see the flames from the city. They were always in the canyons, you know, and yeah, there was a few (burned) here or there, buildings, outbuildings and stuff, but they never came so close to the city. That's what my sister was just saying. I can't imagine the whole palisades just gone," Wolfe said.
She moved to Roundup in 2023 after retiring, but still has family in California. Her daughter and grandkids are there, as well as her mother-in-law.
“My mother-in-law is wearing a mask. She's sleeping with her clothes on. She's in the middle of West L.A. So, she's pretty far away,” Wolfe said. “I don't know how long it's going to take to rebuild. It'll never be the same. And that's the sad part because you still look at Lahaina and it's not, you know, it's going to take years and years and years.”
Her thoughts are with the entire community and those she worked with, grew up with and still talks to that are now going through the devastation.
“It just hurts my heart,” Wolfe said. "A lot of those families that lost their homes had been there for 50 years, 60 years. It was their mother's home or whatever. So it is hard to see. And those people are struggling."
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