Tragedy of Cedar Fire is Told in Newly Published Book
By Ruth Lepper

Living through the Cedar fire in 2003 was an experience many people in Ramona will never forget. Losing your house to the damaging wildfire - and just about everything you own - was traumatic. Reliving all of it can be an ordeal, but it also is part of the healing process.

Chi Varnado has written a book about the difficult and painful experiences that befell her family during that time.

She actually started writing the book about one month before the fire that started in late October 2003. After losing her mother to cancer earlier that year, Varnado said she felt compelled to write about her family and her life in Ramona. She has lived here all of her life, nearly half a century.

"This thing just came out of me and I had no choice," she said of the story she wanted to tell.

To be sure she was going about it in the proper way, she enrolled in a writing class at the University of California, San Diego.

"It was about writing memoirs," she said. "Then the fire hit."

Varnado titled her book "A Canyon Trilogy" with the subtitle "Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire."

"In some ways it was a healing process," she said. "It was just something I had to do and I don't know why. I also ended up reliving it, through the writing, and the rewriting, and the rewriting. It was hard, but it just kind of poured out of me."

The book also covers Varnado's early years, growing up in her family's complex in a remote area near Mussey Grade. In all, the Cedar fire claimed five houses that belonged to Varnado and other members of her family.

Varnado wants readers to be able to relate to a way of life that is changing in today's society.

"Life here has become so almost urban, the quick satisfaction element," she explained. "In the book, it shows a work ethnic, living very rurally, having a deep appreciation of the land and the nature around you, trying to live more holistically."

At times, writing the book became a family project, involving Varnado's husband Kent, daughters Jessie and Kali, and son Chance. The tragedy of the fire following so soon after the loss of their grandmother was hard on the children, but the book helped to be a healing process for them, as well.

"They contributed to the book," she said. "If I left something out, they let me know about it."

By the end of 2004, their new log cabin was ready, but it doesn't hold the same affection for Varnado as the old house that was built in the 1920s.

"I really miss the feeling of the old house," she said. "I feel I'm meant to be in an old house, something about the history of it. The new house has to gain some history."

If everything stays on schedule, the book should be back from the publisher in

time for book signings at the Ramona Children's Festival in Collier Park on May 3 and the Santa Ysabel Art Festival on May 17. The book is priced at $19.99.

"The book is done but the story of what comes after death and tragedy is probably a process that continues the rest of your life," she reflected. "It affects you in ways you can't possibly see at the time, years ahead down the road, that you can't possibly see."

For information, Varnado can be contacted at 760-789-8532 or through her Web site at www.chivarnado.com.