As wildfires tear through Los Angeles, the images of devastation are all too familiar to many across San Diego County, bringing back memories of destructive blazes in the past – and the long, difficult road to rebuild. Jim Barker was one of the original homeowners in his Scripps Ranch neighborhood when it was built decades ago. When he and his wife left for work one morning in October 2003, they knew of the Cedar Fire. But he said it wasn’t a threat to their area. San Diego’s firestorm: A look at the devastating 2003 wildfires, 20 years later “Then the fire came through so fast, when I found out the house was gone, you know, what do you do?” Barker recalled. “You deal with it. There’s not much you can do. We couldn’t get back into the area, once I did, you know, it was – it was sad. The only thing left standing in the house was the fireplace.” His entire neighborhood, save for one home, burnt to the ground. “It was devastating. You lose everything, everything but your memories,” he said. Barker was left with just the clothes on his back, his coin collection – still covered in ash to this day – and no idea where to turn. “There’s nothing here, what do we do now? Where do we start?” he said. “I mean, not really knowing where you’re going to live. Who do you contact? Do you have insurance? You’ve got all these issues that are coming through, going through your mind and so that’s what you start thinking of. Right away you start thinking of, ‘Okay what can we do now to fix it?’” Key to their recovery, he said, was community. “We had a good neighborhood,” Barker said. “We still have a good neighborhood. And I think that helped us get through it, because we got through it together.” Barker said together he and his neighbors hired contractors, navigated insurance and reminded one another of what truly matters. “It’s life. Everything else is stuff that can be replaced. Life is what’s most important,” he said. “Bottom line was: nobody got hurt. That’s what our big concern was.” A photo showing the aftermath of the Cedar Fire from above now hangs on his reconstructed wall. “Not too many people have that picture,” he said. But as fires continue to burn in Los Angeles, there are now thousands more people who may. Barker said seeing the destruction to the north makes him feel sad, as a founding member of a club no one wants to join. “I know what they’re going through. And the despair that some of them are dealing with,” he said, adding that he knows it’s a long road ahead. “It takes time, you know? Have some patience and work – you’ve got to work through it,” Barker said. “You really have to have some patience to deal with all of the struggles that you’re going to go through: the rebuilding process, the insurance issues, permitting.” He said elected leaders’ efficiency in helping victims was critical in his neighborhood’s recovery.   “Government can work if they allow it to,” Barker said. “We got permits, all right away. That’s what it’s going to take. Hopefully the city of L.A., and all the other small cities out there that are affected by the fires will really take that to heart and help the people that need it. They can’t do it on their own.” Barker’s home was rebuilt 15 months after the fire and has stood for 20 years – old enough to need a new garage door that was installed Friday. But he said the memories of the Cedar Fire have not faded. “It never leaves,” he said. “I mean, you’re always affected, when the fires start every year, we start getting the Santa Anas, I start thinking and we start watching.” “But do I worry about it? No, you can’t do anything about it. I have a go bag, as everybody says, I know what I need to take this time. And if it goes, it goes. I just don’t want anybody to get hurt, and I’m going to get out early. I’m not going to sit here with a hose and try to save the house. It’s just not worth it.” Because he lost everything before cameras were digital, Barker said he was left without any photos of his children when they were young – except one. He and his wife tracked down a portrait photographer years after he had retired. That photographer searched his negatives to find Barker’s children and reprinted the images, decades later. Those, he said, are now absolutely part of his go bag – even something he thought he’d lost forever, replaced. “If I could help those folks up in L.A., give them some hope – because there is,” Barker said.