A fire relief weekend across Arcata
Plans for the Arcata Rising fundraising shows this weekend began coming together the night of the Jan. 2 fire.
Sitting at Dead Reckoning Tavern, just a few blocks away from the devastation, and reeling from the conflagration they had just watched devour a block of shops, homes and studios, Humbrews owner Shelley Ruhl says she turned to former owner Andy Ardell and said, “Let’s throw a benefit concert.”
From there, things came together quickly. Ardell, who still books the acts for the venue, reached out to Brian Swizlo, keyboardist for Object Heavy and other local bands, who in turn reached out to some of his friends and bandmates to see if they wanted to play. The response was overwhelming.
“Within 24 hours, I had close to 20,” Swizlo says, adding that’s grown to more than 30 bands as well as DJs, hosts and visual artists. “At first, we were going to do one day on Saturday. It just got too big. … Everyone just wanted to be down.”
Taking the three-day show under his wings has been a challenge, Swizlo acknowledges, bringing together not only the talent but the sound managers, pit crews and other behind-the-scenes personnel needed to pull off what he willingly admits is an “over-the-top, nearly impossible” schedule of 30-minute sets with 10 minutes in between acts performing on two stages.
“I just feel that there were firefighters running into the fire and people who don’t have their birth certificates anymore, so I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine,” he says. “I know it’s bigger than all of us and it’s doable and it’s exciting. I’m just looking at the list now and going, ‘How are all of these bands available?’”
Ruhl agrees. “There’s just so much support. It’s amazing,” she says, describing the way everything came together as a “feat of meticulous scheduling and selflessness.”
All the money raised from the shows — Friday is a regularly ticketed show while Saturday and Sunday will be a $10 minimum suggested donation at the door — are going to the businesses and residents impacted. Additionally, Humbrews is donating $1 from each pint and 25 percent from orders of two specials on offer at the event.
And, Ruhl notes, she’s working with Pay It Forward Humboldt as her “accountability partner in getting the money to the right places.”
Swizlo says he feels a sense of magnitude in the placement of some acts, who will be performing in front of the main window — the space where bands used to play back in the day — with the charred remains of the 800 block of H Street visible in the background, calling it both “nostalgic” and “poignant.”
One of the reasons they published the exact time of each set on Saturday and Sunday, Swizlo says, is to make sure people know when their favorite bands are playing, so they can go out and be part of the other events happening around town on those days.
Known collectively as Arcata Fire Relief Support Group Weekend, venues, artists, shops and restaurants across town will also be opening their doors in different ways for the loosely formed but shared effort to help those impacted — as well as bring the community together.
While not coordinating the weekend of events, the Arcata Chamber of Commerce website is hosting an interactive map to which local businesses can add their plans, as well as links to fire relief resources and vetted donation sites. (Also see this week’s Calendar, Nightlife Grid, and On the Table, as well as northcoastjournal.com for more details.)
“Our intention was just to bring the community together to show solidarity, strength and support,” Executive Director Meredith Maier says.
A lot of unknowns remain in the wake of the five-alarm fire, including the cause, which the results of a joint investigation by the Arcata Fire District and Arcata Police Department has classified as “undetermined.”
Seven businesses and eight apartments were destroyed in the blaze that moved swiftly through the historic buildings amid high winds after being spotted by an Arcata Fire crew around 2:30 p.m.
No injuries were reported but some residents lost their pets in the fire.
Officials say flames were able to move through the “concealed spaces within the interconnected structures” and a gas manifold damaged by the fire left crews unable to shut down the supply to the buildings on fire.
PG&E crews, which Arcata Fire Chief Chris Emmons said at a meeting earlier in January arrived very quickly on scene, ultimately had to excavate at 10th and H streets to reach and crimp the line.
Without the assistance of agencies from across the county — including Humboldt Bay Fire, Samoa Fire, Kneeland Fire, Westhaven Fire, Loleta Fire, Ferndale Fire, Fortuna Fire, Fieldbrook Fire, Blue Lake Fire, Rio Dell Fire, Arcata-Mad River Ambulance, CAL FIRE Trinidad, and CAL FIRE Weott — the devastation could have been much worse.
On Sunday, a Heroes Parade is set for noon at the Arcata Plaza to honor all the first responders who rushed to the scene, preventing the fire from spreading beyond the single city block.
Like the Arcata Rising concert, the event started with a conversation.
Amy Bohner says she was talking with her husband Steve, fellow co-owner of Alchemy Distillery, about how blown away she was by all the fundraising in those first days after the fire when he said, “Maybe we should do something for the first responders.”
Bohner brought the idea to Maier and next thing she knew, she was taking a crash course on how to put together a parade. It’s something, she says, that’s “been my life for the last couple weeks,” quickly noting that she has “no regrets.”
“They deserve all the kudos they have coming their way,” she says.
Things will kick off around 11 a.m. with local organizations and agencies, from the county’s Office of Emergency Services and the Red Cross to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and CalFire (which will be bringing three therapy dogs) tabling in the plaza center. Then, at 11:50 a.m., Arcata Mayor Kimberley White will read a city proclamation.
Organizers are looking for people to be in place around the plaza before the main event starts at noon from the Arcata Fire station. The Marching Lumberjacks will start things off, followed by Arcata Fire trucks, APD vehicles and those of the departments from across the county that rushed to help, a response that officials have credited with preventing a catastrophic event far beyond the devastation wrought that day.
Other agencies, including PG&E, California Fish and Wildlife Department, City Ambulance, among others, are also invited to participate. Also joining in the two rounds around the plaza will be the operator of the excavator who did the delicate work of tearing down parts of the block to aid fire suppression, along with the piece of heavy equipment on a flatbed truck, Bohner says.
But, she notes, “there’s no real reason for a parade if the community doesn’t come out with signs, cheers and welcome.”
To help set the scene, there will be a free sign-making workshop at the Arcata Playhouse on Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with cardboard, paints and other craft supplies for people ready to “bring their creativity to show our local heroes our appreciation.”
Watching the plans for this weekend coalesce alongside the outpouring of support that’s been flowing since the flames tore through Arcata’s downtown on that Friday afternoon has been “inspiring,” she says.
“Such local rock stars putting their heads down and saying, ‘Let’s do it,’” Bohner says. “It just really did take the whole city coming together to pull this off in the same month.” l
Kimberly Wear (she/her) is the assistant editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400 ext. 105 or kim@northcoastjournal.com.
This article appears in ‘Bigger Than All of Us’.