Special Report: Bastrop Wildfire

SMITHVILLE (KXAN) - Just 46 miles east of Austin, the little shops of the Alum Creek Center once sat peacefully amid the rolling hills and piney woods of Smithville in Bastrop County - a quaint retreat from the clustered traffic of a bustling city.

Then the wildfire came, sweeping across 1500 acres of farmland, homes, and businesses in a blaze that took hundreds of firefighters more than a week to fully contain. It burned 28 homes and 12 businesses, ruined the lives of lifelong residents and newly arrived hopefuls, and brought a community together with hopes of recovery.

The Alum Creek Center, where lives intertwined and dreams were built for more than three decades, was among the casualties.

Here are the stories of people who are left picking up the pieces of a special place.

After 30 years, Alum Creek will 'live through it.'

With the start of his first shop decades ago, Alum Creek Center owner Charlie Claiborne has seen his little corner of Bastrop County flourish.

Each small business capitalized on the tranquil ambience, building successful livelihoods and colorful lives. The center was handed down to him by family and has been an epicenter of eclecticism since 1974, with each shop contributing its own unique flair.

From antique stores to a carpenter shop, a Wi-Fi business, hypnosis, reflexology and acupuncture shops, the Alum Creek Center was not just a living for many - but something closer to the heart.

“Losing this is like losing a close family member. I don’t like funerals,” Charlie said. “This has been a family to all of us for years.”

Once a charming core of magnetic people and businesses, most of Alum Creek Center lies in debris and indistinguishable rubble. The scalding blaze brought almost every building to the ground, back to the very dust and foundation it was built upon.

However, the first shop Charlie ever ran still stands sturdily in the same place it’s always stood. The fire lurked close, melting the mini-blinds on cracked windows and burning the wood between the cracks in the floorboards.

Charlie said he confronted ashes and embers roaring in his face the day the fire crept up on the center. And although Charlie recognizes the sweeping tragedy the wildfire brought to historic Alum Creek Center businesses, he admits to hoping the fire would hit his center rather than homes. Having lost his own house to a 1985 blaze, Charlie knows exactly what that’s like.

“You rely heavily on prayer, friends, family and whatever support groups you can,” said Charlie. “Alum Creek has gone through its ups and downs. This is just one more hardship. We’ll live through it. We’ll come back.”

Cafe was a part of life

Mari Claiborne can laugh about the irony surrounding the fate her café that was a staple in Bastrop County.

The Wildfire Café: Burned to the ground.

Behind the laugh, however, the café owner knows that what was once the physical embodiment of the lively, upbeat personality of the area can never be recovered.

For many, the Wildfire Café was a part of life.

“Every Friday I went to Wildfire Café and got me a burger to eat for lunch,” said Bridget Nelson, an employee at a neighboring wireless Internet business. “Every Friday you knew everybody in Wildfire Café. … I always looked forward to Friday because I got to go see Mari and all them, and no more of that.”

The mismatching china, furniture and color schemes brought everything together impeccably, transforming an old way station into a way of life. Now the blue-and-white tea cups are buried in ashes; the flowered dishware charred. The metal tables bowed from the heat.

Mari and co-owner Teri Griswold assure clamoring clients that their restaurant will open again. Just not in the same place it’s always been.

“The hardest part, truthfully, what made this the place what it was, was not the building but the people,” said Mari. “And not just the people that worked here, but that came here and ate and drank and sat. That’s the hardest loss for us: The connection that we had with our customers that were more than customers but friends, really extraordinary friends.”

From one disaster to another

Retired Army veteran Mike Mallicote recently returned from Afghanistan and Iraq, where he damaged his hearing and fought a war he called “a disaster.”

He came to quiet Bastrop County, looking forward to running his small businesses with his wife, Sara, in a strip inside the Alum Creek Center. And he relished the freedom he had to cruise through the gorgeous, tree-lined countryside on his brand new Suzuki motorcycle.

The Cedar Chest shop was brimming with antique furniture, impressionary glass, jewelry and curios. But now Mallicote’s retirement lies in the somber ashes of his once hopeful businesses.

In addition to his antique shop, Mike had a woodworking shop and a storage space. He hopes to rebuild in the one building that didn’t burn.

With his wife Sara and his 8-month-old Chihuaua, Pepe, Mike sifts through the remains of antique equipment used by

farmers and ranchers in earlier times. He notes the 25 torched fire extinguishers that were never used, and sadly regards his motorcycle that burned in the blaze, which he had recently parked inside the building to keep safe.

Mike also stopped paying fire insurance not too long ago because of the rising prices.

“It’s hard to go from one disaster overseas and to come home and then have to deal with another disaster,” said Mike. “My wife and I are trying to learn to cope with it and just see what we can do. It’s a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of hurt around here.”

A modern dream, cut short

Nestled among the quaint shops at the Alum Creek Center, it’s hard to miss the family-run Internet business called CG Communications, Inc.

Though small in size, the wireless technology business spans a tri-county area, with nine towers from Bastrop to Fayette and Caldwell counties. The modern company, a couple dozen yards away from the antique shops, may have seemed a little out of place in the quiet, piney woods.

But the company thrived, until it went up in flames just three days before its one-year anniversary. Now the Grohman family, along with employee Bridget Nelson, find themselves rummaging through piles of ash, picking up charred hole-punchers and melted file cabinets.

A deformed desk where Bridget used to sit reminds her an end-of-the-month task she had put off at the end of the week for the following Monday, thinking the task would be there to greet her come the start of the new week. However, she never got the chance to complete it. Everything happened so quickly after the alarming phone call came, ordering them to evacuate before the fire arrived. Chris Grohman, the company’s president, barely had enough time gather up his buddies and save what they could from inside the business while his parents, the co-owners, were out of town.

In a poetic twist, among only things that survived the flames was a sign placed prominently at the front of the building that read: “Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.”

The other thing: The newly installed security bars on the windows. They landed on the ground when the walls burned around them.

But the little hi-tech company made a speedy recovery. The signal was down for only 52 hours after the fire hit. Though the on-site tower was lost, Joanne Grohman said they are working out of her home office and rely on a main tower site on Highway 95. And with the help of a competitor, CG Communications was able to get going again until it could reroute its signal to other towers in the area.

“We’re real lucky. We have it so good, so made out here,” Bridget said. “This is a very, very blessed place, very happy place around here. I mean, it was family.”

Among the survivors: Two memorials

Two of the most astounding things that survived the blaze were delicate memorials dedicated to people who loved the Alum Creek Center.

Though the fire destroyed buildings and material possessions, it is clear the memories have not been lost. Rather, they’ve grown stronger.

A singed tree stands bare, marking the place of Pat Richert’s memorial. It was a place her husband, Charles “Chuck” Richert, had asked to spread her ashes. Known as “Pat’s Tree,” Charlie said it is a symbol for the sentiment of everybody around.

Nearby, an angel sits alone, covered in ash, with a colorful mosaic glass ball just behind it that catches the sun’s rays. They’re settled in what was once a small garden memorial dedicated to Kim McLagan, who died in a car accident and loved the Alum Creek Center.

“She planted plants and did wonderful things,” said Charlie.

Kindness ‘renders me speechless’

Just about a year ago, Billy McGlaun walked into the Wildfire Café as a customer for some hearty breakfast but walked out a beaming employee. He’d offered his help to owner Mari Clairborne, who was short-handed and hustling about to get the day’s work done. She immediately put him to work and he’s never left since. Billy worked at the restaurant during the day and slept at the neighboring Earth Angel inspirational gift and bookstore at night, losing both his job and home in the blaze.

“I lost everything,” Billy said.

Billy said he was in the café when he got wind of the fire, and he and restaurant co-owner Teri Griswold began scrambling to get whatever they could into a car. The other owner of the café, Mari Clairborne, was out of town that day, so it was up to them to salvage what they could.

Billy managed to get his dog and load up some things that belonged to his father, artist Bill McGlaun. But the father was out of town and lost his art and sculpting business along with a vehicle. Locals refer to Bill’s artwork as “true art,” some of it even featured in the Vatican and the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

Though some of these material possessions invaluable, Billy says he’s just glad no one was hurt in the fire. With his friends donating a car and Teri opening the doors of her home to him, Billy is