Rebuilding From Camp Fire to Take Years
It could take residents years or even a decade to rebuild after the Camp Fire in California due to labor shortages and insurance costs. Some construction tradesmen also lost their own homes to the fires. Those hoping to build a new house quickly would get a dose of reality by looking to Sonoma, Napa, and Lake counties, where the Wine Country fires destroyed more than 8,000 structures in October 2017, said Keith Woods, CEO of the North Coast Builders Exchange in Santa Rosa. Of the 5,600 homes destroyed in the Tubbs Fire, the most destructive of the dozen blazes, only 200 homes have been rebuilt and reoccupied, with another 800 under construction and expected to be completed by the end of 2019, Woods said.