They did not come when Robin Kaufman drove from her Duenda Road home three years ago, her five dogs aboard but most of her belongings left behind.

She did not think her house would burn. She was on her way to volunteer with an emergency preparedness team.

And they did not come when the deputy fire chief called to say that while Kaufman was helping the firefighters so they could save others' homes, the Witch Creek fire had overtaken her Duenda Road home.

No, the tears came later that night in the hotel when the calls came in asking, "Are you OK?"

"Then I gave a little bit of a cry, but that was it," Kaufman said. "My philosophy is OK, it burned, it's gone. Yes, I treasured the items, but I moved on."

Three years after the Witch Creek fire destroyed more than 1,000 San Diego-area homes, the push to move on, or the inability to do so, remains at the forefront of the minds of many "fire survivors."

"A lot of the outsiders say fire victims and we're not victims. We're survivors," Kaufman said at a recent gathering of people who were affected by the devastating fires.

As people have been rebuilding their homes, an invisible wall has been growing between the people who lost their homes and those who didn't, some say.

"The people who didn't lose their homes don't understand and they're tired of it," said Jacques Lord, whose Luz Road home burned.

"And our kids don't want to come and hear it. We're a band of brothers in a very exclusive club that has high initiation rates," Lord said.

It's not that the others don't care; they just don't understand, Lord and Kaufman said.

"They go, 'It's three years already. Move on with your life,' " Kaufman said. "They don't understand."

How long it takes to emotionally work through traumatic events varies by individual, said Jennifer Turner, public information officer for the California Department of Mental Health.

"We are human and we need to be [aware] that what we may think is right is not always right for somebody else," she said. "Some people it may take a little bit longer depending on any underlying issues in that individual's life that are playing a factor."

Longterm behavioral changes, like trouble sleeping and feeling upset by reminders of the traumatic event, could be symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Turner said.

"If it's more longstanding, it's definitely recommended that you check in with your doctor," she said.

Both Kaufman and Lord noted lingering emotional struggles for friends and family after the fire. A friend's son still has anxiety attacks after experiencing flames lapping at the back of the family vehicle as they fled three years ago, Kaufman said.

Lord, who has four daughters, said some of their grades suffered in the aftermath.

For Dorothy East, the struggle is more personal.

As East, who goes by her middle name Marie, recalled the night she left her Starvation Mountain home for the last time, her green eyes welled with tears.

"I get emotional," East said before pausing mid-story. "I never saw the flames or anything, but when I think of my house burning, that makes me sad.

"It's a pretty traumatic thing so do you get over traumas that soon, no matter what they are?"

East had come to the same Fired Up Sisters event at the Ed Brown Senior Center as Kaufman and Lord last Friday after hearing about the gathering on the news. All three said the support of the community has been a major factor in their emotional recovery from losing their home.

Some have even come to see the tragedy as a positive turning point for the RB community.

"We just had so many good things happen from it," said Bobbie Davis, one of the residents who opted to rebuild after losing her Aguamiel Road home of 30 years in 2007.

Davis said she has made new friends and formed stronger bonds with neighbors over the past three years.

"I got to know a lot of our neighbors who I probably couldn't have even pointed out in a lineup before," Davis laughed.

Davis said she's even fallen more deeply in love with her new home than the one claimed by the fire.

"It was hard, but it seems like ages ago already," Davis said.