California has broken ground on the California Wildfire Memorial at Capitol Park in Sacramento.
The memorial will honor wildfire victims, survivors and the people who helped their communities through wildfire disasters across the state.
Kate Scowsmith said at the groundbreaking event that her family lost their home, pets and neighborhood in the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people in Butte County.
She says being a survivor can mean grieving lost routines, like passing a favorite tree on the way to work or seeing the friendly servers at a local coffee shop.
Scowsmith, a social worker, says some of these losses are called “disenfranchised grief” in her line of work.
“Grief that does not always have a clear place to go or is not fully acknowledged by others,” she said. “It can be invisible and unrecognized, and sometimes it is a loss we don’t even know we are allowed to grieve.”
She says the memorial will be a place that holds those losses.
State Sen. Mike McGuire expects the memorial to be unveiled in early 2028.
It’ll be next to the California Firefighters Memorial.
“A family can come literally decades after and know that their loved one and their story will never be forgotten,” McGuire said at the event.
California lawmakersallocated $50,000 for the monument in 2024, and the state will install and own it.
