COLUMN ONE : Lessons of Oakland Hills Blaze : Victims relive their experiences in the aftermath of the 1991 catastrophe. They tell Southlanders who have lost homes to beware of haste in resuming lives.

By MAURA DOLAN

Oct. 29, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO — For many victims of the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire--the worst wildfire in California history--the experience was the closest they have ever come to war.

Now, as some of those victims watch through tears the images of catastrophe beamed from Southern California, they have lessons to share, advice to offer those faced with resuming their lives.

“Take your time,” said Robert Bruce, 54, who lost his home in the firestorm that swept through the afternoon and night of Oct. 20, 1991. “Just don’t hurry.”

Children became depressed and anguished, overlooked in their parents’ anxiety-filled dash to find new homes and settle with insurance companies. Those whose homes escaped the fire while neighbors’ burned suffered guilt and nightmares, but received little support.

Decisions about insurance were made too hastily, and some homes were rebuilt without thought to how they would conform to the lots.

The Oakland Hills fire killed 25 people and destroyed nearly 3,000 homes, many of them in nearby Berkeley. Two years later, many victims have yet to settle with insurance companies or rebuild.

Bruce and others advise victims of this week’s Southern California inferno to spend time with family and friends. Allow the shock to pass before making any decisions. Children may become obsessed with safety, fretting “what if” over and over again.

Take them to familiar places--a park where they can see friends, the home of a close relative, anywhere they have felt comfortable in the past.

Therapists in Oakland noticed that many victims had accidents in the days after the fire--from broken bones to dented fenders.

“People will be disoriented, confused, oblivious to crossing intersections, in a daze on freeways,” said Ilana Singer, an Oakland psychotherapist who counseled or interviewed at least 75 fire survivors. “It is a time to be very careful.”

Others stressed that it became important for them to learn to accept help from others--clothes, invitations to dinner, a friendly ear.

“What you have to realize at this point and time is there is a limit to your self-sufficiency,” said Joseph Schieffer, an Oakland attorney who lost his home in the fire. “When people offer to give you help, take it.”

The guilt that sets in is insidious, victims report--guilt over not having saved your home, your children’s baby books or your grandparents’ wedding pictures. People whose houses escaped experienced as many nightmares and much of the anguish as the fire victims, psychologists said, but did not receive as much sympathy or support.

Some Oakland and Berkeley victims caution against talking to an insurance company until the shock has subsided. Others said to do so carefully, keeping a record of what was said and asking for an advance to help pay for temporary housing while a settlement is pending.

Several recommended hiring a public adjuster or attorney, particularly one who has negotiated with your insurance company, after interviewing several prospects and getting recommendations.

Months will be spent making painstaking inventories of the home’s lost contents, from underwear to silver. Friends and relatives should be asked for photographs they may have taken in the home if the victims’ own pictures were lost in the fire. Blueprints should be gathered, if available.

Finding a new place to live became especially difficult for many Oakland victims because of the sudden huge demand for homes in the area. Rents quickly rose. Some victims recommended renting a temporary place close to the home that burned down to keep an eye on the rebuilding and to allow children to stay in the same schools.

On some topics, there is disagreement about the best course to follow. Some advise those planning to rebuild to act quickly, before contractors and architects are overwhelmed and before the city permit process is besieged.

Others insist that it is better to move slowly.

“I think the wisest thing is not to rebuild immediately--to sit down and wait, and collect your wits and negotiate with your insurance companies,” said Bruce, who started a newspaper for victims after the firestorm. “It is going to take at least six months to do your plans and get them through the permit process.”

It is also crucial to keep in mind the personal needs of the family, especially because after the adrenaline wears off, depression and fatigue set in, victims say.

Bruce’s son, Daniel, who was 12 at the time of the fire, lost interest in sports and his grades dropped. “Parents had to deal with insurance companies, taxes and rebuilding,” Bruce said. “While we took care of the kids physically, we spent less time thinking about what the impact was on our children.”

Bruce saw the lingering effect on Daniel again this week while they watched TV coverage of the Southern California fires. A wave of revulsion and anger washed over his son’s face. “I don’t want to watch this,” Daniel said and stalked from the room.

Teresa Ferguson Scott, 41, lost her invalid mother-in-law in the fire. Scott was out of town with her family when the fire started, and a caretaker who had been hired to watch over the mother-in-law at their home had left to go to church and could not get back through fire barricades. The woman died in the house.

“Two weeks after things had calmed down,” Scott recalled, “we went back to the site and put out a box, hoping the cat would come back. Sure enough, about five days after that, the cat was found.

“We were all just overjoyed. I looked over and saw my 8-year-old, Kate. Tears were streaming down her face. “Grandy,’ she said. That was what she called her grandmother.”

Several victims said that it helped once they began trying to rebuild their lives--making plans for a new house and obtaining things they had lost in the fire. Family and friends often provided photographs to replace what had burned.

“People will be amazed at how many photographs you can re-create by talking to family and friends,” said Scott, a financial officer. “We lost our wedding photographs, but we now have snapshots that people took at our wedding.”

For many, each day brought the discovery that something else was missing. Victims told of going shopping for a shirt to match a pair of pants, and then realizing they no longer had the pants.

Desperately seeking something familiar, some victims drove all over to buy exactly what they had lost--down to the same kind and color of sheets and towels--even if they had not liked them much before.

“When you lose everything you have, everything you are surrounded with, you lose your sense of identity,” Scott said. “It is a very strange phenomenon.”

She recommends that Southern California’s victims take advantage of federal disaster aid loans. “The process is tedious and a lot of paperwork, but well worth it.”

Victims said they found solace in support groups, even those organized to fight insurance companies, and many said they benefited greatly from counseling.

Betty Ann Bruno, whose home was destroyed, said she would advise fire victims to be good to themselves to help start the recovery process. One man she heard about bought himself four pieces of sculpture the day after the firestorm burned his house to the ground.

“He didn’t have any clothes,” she said, “but he had art.”

She and her husband, who like to sail, decided after the blaze that they “wanted to be in a permanent place” near water. So they rented a townhouse on the beach in Alameda, a community near Oakland on San Francisco Bay.

“It was very healing,” she said. By contrast, she told of neighbors who were still living in a motel three months after the fire. “They were stuck in grief,” she said.

Indeed, the pain persists for many. Some couples divorced; the strain of the ordeal taxed already troubled marriages. One fire victim committed suicide, slashing her wrists and throat with scissors.

Stephen Crosetti, 38, said he noticed that many retirees in his neighborhood became ill and several died after the fire. His house survived but his parents’ house nearby burned to the ground.

“You are happy that it didn’t happen to you,” he said, “but every time you come up your street and see your neighbors’ home gone, you have a sense of guilt because you have all your belongings and your neighbors don’t. It’s always there.”

On the first anniversary of the Oakland Hills fire, many found themselves weeping, unable to remember things and angry. It was better on the second anniversary this month.

But the Southern California fires have rekindled the anguish.

Lorraine Ghilarducci, 65, who lost the Oakland home that she and her husband built 38 years ago, said she got nauseous and experienced extreme chills while watching TV footage of the Southern California fires Wednesday. But she could not tear herself away from the set.

“It is hard,” Teresa Scott said. “I was up all night last night. I am just heartbroken for those people.”