The experience of a megafire, like the ones in Los Angeles County earlier this month, is emotionally devastating. Healing takes time and effort. Adrienne Heinz, a clinical research psychologist at the VA National Center for PTSD and Stanford University, specializes in trauma, including creating digital health interventions for communities impacted by it. She and her family have survived three megafires in Sonoma County. After the Tubbs Fire in 2017, she co-founded the Sonoma Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative to foster community-based recovery following a collective trauma. With Stanford professors of psychiatry and behavioral sciences Shannon Wiltsey Stirman and Mark McGovern, Heinz evaluated the collaborative’s initiatives, which have since guided the recovery process for survivors of the 2019 and 2020 fires in Sonoma County, the 2023 fire in Lahaina, Hawaii, and now the 2025 fires in the Los Angeles area. Stanford spoke with Heinz about what survivors and their loved ones should know about recovering emotionally from a megafire.
Photo: Mischief & Mister
STANFORD: Tell me how you found yourself working in this area.
In 2017 [my family] had just moved [from San Francisco] up to Healdsburg, in Sonoma County. We were getting settled into the community, and pretty soon thereafter, the Tubbs fire broke out. That was kind of like the dawn of the megafire for California. There’s since been many subsequent, but it was really unprecedented and historical, and folks didn’t have a roadmap or blueprint for what to do or how to cope.
I didn’t mean to become an expert in disaster, mental health, and climate change, but here we are.
Did you lose your home in any of those fires?
We have been spared every time. And it’s a miracle. In 2019 we were pretty sure we were going to lose it, and the winds just happened to change. But we know what it’s like to evacuate with young kids and not be sure what you’re coming home to, if anything at all.
What is a person’s state of mind immediately after a megafire?
So right now, the fires are still not out. There’s still active threat to their community. And really, you can’t switch over to healing till there’s resolution of these fires and people are physically safe. So it’s still very much acute stress. There might be sensations of feeling numb or shock or disbelief, sometimes this feeling of being disassociated from reality a little bit. Like, “how could this be happening?”
And fight-or-flight is activated. So a lot of people are probably struggling with sleep. Nightmares are very common. And oftentimes we forget that we’re out of routine. We’re off schedule with things like eating, hydration, moving our bodies, sleeping, social connection, because we’ve been displaced. It’s a time where people are very vulnerable to emotional spirals.
And I will say at the same time, crisis brings about emerging leaders and inner strength and community ties that are beautiful and bring out the best of humanity. So, I think you can hold both sides of this coin here.
What is unique about a megafire in terms of stress and grief and recovery?
Well, unlike other kind of disasters, this [can keep] being threatening, if the fire is not out. [Some] people have had to evacuate more than once, sometimes multiple times. It’s not like a tornado that rips through and then is over. There’s a chronic stress component here that is a different flavor.
Losing your home to a fire—especially one that burned as hot as these fires have—there’s nothing left. It’s the space that held your memories, where you maybe raised your children, where you had events that celebrated different benchmarks in your life. It is gone. There’s a term called solastalgia, and it’s like being homesick even when you’re home. Because it’s not the home, it’s your visceral relationship with your home.
That’s very interesting, because you hear people say all the time that it’s the people that matter. The things can be replaced. Which is all true on some level. But also, it’s not.
Yeah, our homes are a place where we gather. It’s where we break bread together. It’s where we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. And so that space being gone is devastating, and it can be traumatic. And these fires burn so hot that usually even the foundation of the home is not salvageable and has to be removed. So there’s literally nothing left. This is almost like your existence was erased. You can feel quite untethered.
I’ve helped friends sift through the ash. And then also, a lot of people aren’t allowed back in right now, and that’s a source of frustration and pain. The reason they can’t is because [authorities] have to retrieve the bodies of people who have passed away first. You don’t want to see that, first of all. And out of respect for them, you need to give the authorities the space to do it. But that’s been really hard for people—to not have that closure by physically standing on their land or their home and seeing what has happened.
How can survivors manage their emotions in the initial days and weeks? Is “manage” even the right word?
How do you manage this? This is insanity. There are so many things that you don’t want to think about—because why would you. So, I’ll call it coping, getting through the day.
What I’ve seen be helpful is radical self-compassion. Recognizing that you are having a human response to a devastating and horrific situation. And that because you are human, oftentimes your emotions might feel overwhelming. You will have cognitive struggles. You will have trouble focusing, paying attention, remembering things, being productive. And I think releasing those expectations of yourself and giving yourself grace is critical, because it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how high-functioning you are. This is incredibly daunting to think about rebuilding your home and your community when it’s been erased.
You’re going have this to-do list that never quits. And you know, sometimes you just need to look back and have a celebration of your ta-da list. Disaster survivors are super busy, and they need to take an inventory of what they have done, because it will never feel like enough. There’s always more.
Is there something physical or tactical that makes a big difference in the short-term for your mental health?
Having stable housing, even if it’s just temporary, is really important. We saw this with Lahaina fire survivors because of the housing shortage on the island. They were relocated to hotel rooms for over a year. And although it was helpful to have resources in the [hotel] lobby for the community, families wanted to cook for their children, and you can’t do that in a hotel room. We are creatures of comfort, and having a sanctuary during a chaotic time is really critical.
Do you have tips to help people recenter in the moment?
Absolutely. They’re not rocket science, but they help bring us out of fight-or-flight and downregulate the nervous system. For folks who have lost everything in the fires, it’s “go time” to register with FEMA and deal with their insurance, find a new school—a million things to do. You can’t sustain that level of arousal without having some serious problems.
So there’s box breathing: Breathe in for a count of four, hold for four, and [exhale for four], Your breath is your best friend.
Also, changes in temperature: If you can put your face in a bowl of ice water, it’s fabulous. It triggers the mammalian dive response—it causes your resting heart rate to slow, you start to go into a place of rest versus activation.
And then sensory: What are five things that you see, four things that you can feel, three things you can hear, two things that you could smell, and one nice thing about yourself? And then a mantra, like, “In this moment, I am safe. In this moment, I have shelter. In this moment, we are together.”
You’ve said that you can’t sustain that heightened state for very long without having a lot of bigger problems. What would those look like? What should people to be on the lookout for?
Recovering from a disaster is a marathon of sprints, they say. You have to think about the long game, because if you approach it as a sprint all the way, there will be a host of emotional, physical, and social consequences. Typically, what we hear clinically from survivors who are just head-down, “let’s get back to life as it was,” are sleep disorders like insomnia, [or] just not getting enough to sustain the energy level they need. You see drinking more to cope, because it helps numb the pain and the distress. You see relationship strain. You see more tension with your spouse, yelling at your kids. And then socially, you start to see more isolation—going inward. And isolation after trauma is kind of a poison, and social connection is our medicine. We’re wired for connection, and when we go inward after being so overwhelmed, it can worsen the symptoms.
And then physically, the somatic component. We know what chronic stress does to the body. It’s not pretty, and you can see things from headaches to digestive issues to more serious conditions. Prolonged chronic stress is not good for us.
If I can’t go to work a day a week, or I’m taking too many days off school, or my marriage is falling apart, or my kids and I are just not on the same page, those are a tap on the shoulder to seek a higher level of care.
Let’s switch to kids for a minute. What’s important for kids in the short term? How do the adults in their lives help them cope?
Depending on the developmental age of your child, they might have different types of trauma responses. Younger kids might become more clingy, or their eating might become more picky, or they have disrupted sleep—whereas teens might show more irritability and angst. It’s also really tough for tweens and teens because social connection—their friendships—are everything, and it’s a very formative time in their life. And when there’s a fire and you’re displaced, or you have to start over a new school, that’s incredibly difficult. Finding ways to connect them with people who they feel close to, that they can be open with, is really important.
Establish safety and connection. You know, being a source of emotional steadiness for your children, even though you don’t feel it. It’s not to say, “Be inauthentic.” It’s just saying, “I want to be honest, this is a really hard time. There’s a lot of uncertainty. I don’t know what’s going to happen with where we live. But I want to let you know that you are safe, and I am here for you, and we can talk about whatever you’re feeling, and I’m not going to judge you. This is a difficult time, and we’re here for each other.”
When we have a loss, it can feel like life will never be normal again. Do you just learn a new normal? Is there some sort of arc to this where you see people feeling like they’re on solid ground again?
So, I would release the expectation that L.A. will be the same or come back as it was. It will be forever changed. There are these concepts of post-traumatic growth and wisdom, that through adversity we can come out as stronger versions of ourselves, with greater appreciation for life and each other, with a better connection with our value systems and what matters most. In terms of going back, there isn’t. It’s adapting.
It’s grieving what was, because that is gone. And it’s hard. And I think we often can sit in this denial: “Oh, we can get back to what we were.” Well, you can’t go back to what you were, because what you were set the stage for the perfect storm for this to happen. So there will be mitigation of fire risk through innovation, with technology, with engineering, with people management. And you know, through this horrible event will come novel ways of doing things for the better.
If somebody you’re close to is going through this in L.A., what is good support? I know people will often say “if there’s anything you need, just let me know.” And that’s not always the most helpful way to go. Is there a better way to be supportive?
Yes. A lot of people don’t know what to say or they’re worried they’ll say the wrong thing. Here are some scripts of how it could look like:
“I’m so sorry for what’s happened, for what your community is experiencing. I don’t have many words. But I’d like to send you dinner on Tuesday or Wednesday; which is better? And what address?” Specific apps would help, like a gift card, or if you’re a good friend and you wear the same size, sending a box of clothes. Providing childcare. “Let me take your kid for the day so that you can deal with insurance and take a nap and just take care of you.” Those are really key—offering an option to help versus generic help.
And then also, there are wrong things to say when someone’s grieving. You don’t want to use the phrase at least. “At least you didn’t lose your house.” Or another one is, “This happened for a reason.” No, no. It just happened. Those types of phrases really invalidate and minimize someone’s experience. You just want to say, “I’m here for you. I’m gonna keep checking in on you. You don’t even need to respond, just know that I have your back.”
I know people are very quick to help in the initial weeks, and then they get back to their own lives. Is there something that’s particularly helpful months later, when everyone else has kind of gone away?
That’s a really great point. There’s this disaster cycle where there’s a rush to help the donations pour in. There’s media attention. It’s headlines. You’re getting texts and calls, and eventually, that changes. You know, our attention span turns to other things. Life goes on, but your life hasn’t changed. You still don’t have a home, or your community is still in ashes.
And so, remembering that for these disaster survivors, recovery isn’t just like three months, and then you’re good. No, it’s a yearslong process. So, set up a donation to a charity of their choice that recurs for three years. That’s one way to address that. Or when someone’s about to encounter the anniversary of losing their home, send them a note, because those memories are stored in their bodies and their hearts, and that acknowledgement of what has happened—even years later—means so much to a survivor.
What have I not asked that we should know?
Right now, it’s really important to plant a seed of hope. And this is not toxic positivity. It’s just saying that of disaster is born innovation; emergent leaders that bring about really creative and impactful changes and a new way forward. And it’s holding two truths at the same time. This awful thing has happened. And look what humans are capable of. Look how resilient we can be, especially if we take care of ourselves and each other.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
