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St. Bernardine staff nurses helped cover for those who were dealing with home evacuations, or unable to commute to work because of closed roadways, Groshong said.

Camaraderie and dedication among nurses and hospital staff workers was evident in hospitals across Southern California.

Kathy Lee, RN, interim manager and emergency department coordinator at Simi Valley Hospital, said the hospital's housekeeping staff put in an inordinate amount of work to eliminate the "sooty" smell that was threatening air quality and comfort for patients.

Employees at Simi Valley, which came close to evacuating nearly 100 patients Oct. 26, also started a fund for a security guard whose former wife and the children he supports lost their home in San Diego, Lee said.

The generosity of friends and family was especially heartwarming for Herold and one of her neighbors, psychiatric nurse Linda Salsberry, RN. Salsberry, who also lost her home in Alpine, was given a $5,000, no-questions-asked donation by her employer, Alvarado Parkway Institute/Behavioral Health System in La Mesa.

"I call them my second family," Salsberry said. "It was just overwhelming … they told me to take as long as I wanted to recover, to take my time and stay out as long as you want. Everyone hugged me."

"I wasn't even able to cry about it for 10 days," because of the outpouring of support, Herold said. Friends and family have provided food, video games for the children and a local property owner even granted them shelter in an off-season beach house.

The Herolds plan to move back to Alpine soon in a rental home and will oversee the reconstruction of a new house on their property. There will be a few changes, such as firefighting spray pumps, a swimming pool and a row of star jasmine bushes that might help slow future fires.

Not back to normal

Even with the hope and thanks that more tragedy was averted, life was far from back to normal last week for many of the nurses.

Bock and her family returned to their house after two weeks, only to find charred roads, ash-laden lawns and intermittent power. Bock's neighborhood was running on generators, she said Nov. 12, and travel was still hazardous. The guardrails along the main road running west out of Running Springs were incinerated, requiring all drivers to follow police-led escorts up and down the mountain road.

"It's about a 30-minute drive for me to come to work anyway, and this just added time on to it," Bock said, "but it's much better than the alternative … The other road to Running Springs was closed because of the fire. And there's a third road that goes up through Big Bear and that's a two-hour drive."

Bock and her family have been cleaning up and bringing their home back to normal. Even without her house, Salsberry said she also feels a sense of peace returning.

She returned last week to view the destruction for the first time, and saw only one item left standing from her house: the fireplace. But from the front seat of her Jeep, she said she saw a hint of beauty-and felt it at the same time.

"It was actually beautiful, because the fire had refined it and made it purer," Salsberry said of the stone-masonry work of the fireplace. "And it made me feel stronger, more refined and purer, [in order] to go on."

Contact Glen Fest at glenf@nurseweek.com