The smoke coming in over the hills from the East was like nothing I had ever seen before. Within an hour, 60 mph Santa Ana winds were pushing the high-billowing clouds of smoke and ash over our neighborhood, creating brown out conditions and choking the air with soot and particulates.

My wife and I knew from news reports that the front line of the Witch Creek fire was still dozens of miles away at the time in a remote part of San Diego County, but we figured that if the winds were blowing the smoke directly over us, they would eventually bring the flames to our doorstep if they didn’t change direction.

We were new to California but we knew the risks and we took our first wildfire evacuation more seriously than some of our friends who had been through it many times before. We packed our go-box with important papers and spent 12 hours prioritizing what possessions we could fit into our two cars before eventually making the decision to leave in the middle of the night as the flames approached our neighborhood.

In the morning, we woke up in a hotel room and turned on the TV to find reporters dodging flames around where we lived. We knew it was bad, but it would take two more days before we could get close enough to confirm what we eventually came to suspect – that our house was among the eighty or so in our neighborhood that had been fully engulfed.

The fires this month in Los Angeles brought back a lot of memories. Our oldest son – who was eight at the time we lost our house – now lives in Pasadena, and we held our breath as he and his girlfriend evacuated to her parents house 20 miles inland and away from the danger. Fortunately, the South flank of the Eaton Fire was eventually contained and they were able to safely return. But many others were not so fortunate.

In nearby Altadena just three miles away from my son’s apartment, a co-worker found herself facing what my family went through 17 years earlier. The house she lived in for more than a decade was gone, along with every other house in their neighborhood. By mid-week, she and her husband had come up for air long enough to sit down for a call with my wife and me to commiserate and help them prepare for the next phase of their difficult journey to recover from the fire.

Many of the themes we heard from them were familiar; they evacuated a few hours earlier than most to be safe – as we had – and they went through the same uncertainty that followed as they waited to find out the fate of their house and most of their worldly possessions. They wanted to get back into their neighborhood to see it for themselves as quickly as possible, but they had to wait until first responders finished searching for bodies in the rubble of every lot.

We had been fortunate to have good insurance, but we prepared our friends for the tedious process of documenting everything lost that lies ahead. In our case, we spent weeks – if not months – filling in the blanks on spreadsheets to account for every item that was in the house, big and small. How many pairs of socks did you have? Do you have receipts for them? Or for the crayons, and magic markers, and every toy your children own? How do we find the replacement value for dishes we bought in Mexico or a side table that might – or might not – have been an antique? 

While all of this paperwork felt like a burden at a time when we were already overwhelmed, we recognized that we were lucky in so many ways. Many others who lost everything in the fires – renters in particular – didn’t have insurance to fall back on when disaster struck. Our family was safe and very little of what we had lost was irreplaceable. We found that the few material possessions we did mourn losing were all tied to loved ones who were no longer with us, but everything else could simply be replaced.

Since the start of the wildfire outbreak in LA, there has been a proliferation of social media posts with pearls of wisdom about how to help natural disaster victims. The advice offered is sometimes good, such as don’t give your friend who just lost their house clothing and other items that haven’t been specifically requested. When you suddenly find yourself homeless, the last thing you need is to accumulate stuff you don’t need or have room for.

But much of the advice circulating misses the mark because there is no one-size-fits-all set of solutions for people who are going through a catastrophic life event like losing a house in a natural disaster. Different people process loss differently and an offer or comment that might uplift one person can overwhelm another who is struggling to process the disaster.

I found that the most common question we were asked – what do you need? – was also the most frustrating to answer in the first week after the fire. We didn’t really know yet what we needed or how to respond when asked that question a dozen times a day. We were not used to being on the receiving end of such overwhelming generosity and it took us a while to take inventory of what we couldn’t do alone and respond in a way that acknowledged the kindness that was being extended to us.

Eventually, we learned how to accept help. Relief organizations – particularly the Red Cross – were a Godsend. Basic necessities such as toiletries, clothing, and household items were available for us to rummage through and take from our neighborhood relief center. We found temporary housing through a matching service that was set up at Qualcomm Stadium, and a co-worker who was also a Realtor on the side helped us arrange for a longer-term solution. My coworkers surprised us with a bag filled with gift cards that had been collected from colleagues across the university where I worked. 

The gift cards were more than just a nice touch. They provided us with resources to cover groceries and replace necessities at a time when a lot of money was going out the door and most of the insurance money hadn’t started coming in. More important, though, was the support it represented from the friends and strangers who were doing the best they could to help us at a time of great need when we weren’t comfortable asking for help.

We benefited greatly from the experience of my boss at the time, and his wife, who had lost their home in a wildfire four years earlier. He told me that a disaster like this doesn’t change who you are, but it reveals to you more about who you and the people in your life are. He said that he had some neighbors who just couldn’t handle the loss and descended into a spiral of drinking and depression, while others found a new appreciation for life and for friends and strangers who helped them through.

Losing a home suddenly is a shock to the system and is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy. Our kids, our extended family, our close friends and neighbors, and the first responders were all deeply impacted in ways that we are still learning about 17 years later. It’s never a good week when Anderson Cooper is camped out in your cul de sac with CNN cameras, using the rubble of your neighbors’ houses as a backdrop to convey the gravity of the disaster. 

But with time and reflection, I have come to better understand what my boss meant about allowing the disaster to teach you about yourself and others. Today in Los Angeles, while firefighters continue to battle the fires raging through the area, there are more heroes working tirelessly behind the scenes to help people who have lost everything. It’s hard to see it when you’re going through the fog of a traumatic event, but when you start to look for it, the kindness is hard to miss.