Losing 500,000 bees in the Almeda Fire was one of countless stings Sharon Schmidt endured as she has struggled to put her life back together.

“Hell was the last three years,” said the Phoenix resident. “The burn was not so much of a hell.”

In June, Schmidt, who lost almost everything on Sept. 8, 2020, finally moved into her replacement manufactured home in the fire-ravaged and rebuilt Creekside Estates in Phoenix after numerous fits and starts.

She describes waiting and waiting for her new manufactured home to arrive, forcing her to move from place to place.

“The house was forever coming but never arrived,” she said. “Everything was hurry up and wait.”

The lot where her previous manufactured home was located was mistakenly given to someone else, requiring her to negotiate for a new lot.

Dealing with a contractor was also a struggle, and Schmidt said she had no experience in building, coming from a health care background.

Getting materials and figuring out where plumbing and other utilities should be located was overwhelming and resulted in costly mistakes.

“What we really needed was a project manager,” said Schmidt. “A lot of people had no idea of how things go together.”

Despite all that she’s suffered through, she still thinks she’s in better shape than others who were less fortunate.

“I can’t complain too terribly much about what happened to me,” she said. “I have immense gratitude to my community, friends and family who have helped me and our organization to recover.”

Her nonprofit Cascade Girl works with schoolchildren, veterans and others, educating them about the importance of bees as pollinators.

While insurance covered much of her loss, Schmidt said, “It’s more out of pocket than I ever expected.”

Somebody at her church offered her a place to stay after the fire, and she generally managed to find other temporary places to live over the past three years despite the lack of housing in the Rogue Valley.

Schmidt vividly remembers almost every detail of the morning when the fire roared to life, destroying 2,428 homes and 173 businesses, and claiming three lives, with Talent and Phoenix being the hardest hit.

She was on her way to visit a friend in a nursing home when she noticed smoke in the distance toward Ashland.

While she wasn’t too worried yet, she had the presence of mind to grab an extra pair of shoes, her dog and her father’s ring. She left behind her artwork and computer.

She wasn’t able to get inside the nursing home, and she called someone near Billings Ranch in Ashland — her friend told her the farm was on fire.

By the time she got back to Phoenix, the fire had raced some 7 miles into her manufactured home park.

Schmidt said former Mayor Chris Luz told her it wasn’t safe to go into the park.

Without a house, Schmidt said she spent the first night after the fire parked at the Medford airport with her dog.

Over the next week, worried about all the fires burning near the Medford area, she stayed in a Grants Pass hotel.

When Schmidt went back to the rubble of her house, she noticed a fire hydrant outside her house had never been opened and neither had several other fire hydrants nearby.

“A lot of people here still have questions about this fire,” she said.

Schmidt had hoped the fire had missed her honey bees behind Biologic Crop Solutions, but they were a total loss.

Another group of hives behind the Phoenix fire station were rescued.

“It’s taken quite a while to rebuild the hives,” Schmidt said.

More than two weeks after the fire, Umpqua Bank in Phoenix, which was also destroyed, had just retrieved customers’ safety deposit boxes from the ruins.

“I went into this very cool room and opened the box, and I was surprised it was still warm inside,” Schmidt recalls.

The contents were untouched by the fire.

Sifting through the rubble at her house, Schmidt found what remained of her father’s old gun, which had been under the couch.

The gun is now part of a statue next to Clyde’s Corner pizzeria that is made up of twisted pieces of metal retrieved from the fire.

Schmidt said she remains anxious about the possibility of another fire, with her bags packed near the door just in case.

Summer heat and the threat of fire is always on her mind.

“I’m still trying to put it into words for the three years that I’ve endured,” Schmidt said. “It feels like three years have been lost.”

The Rogue Valley Times will publish stories all this week looking back at various aspects of the Almeda Fire, of Sept. 8, 2020, including stories from survivors reliving the experience.