fire, fire everywhere

Lately we have had fire at the forefront of our thoughts, day and night. Living on a ridge at the top of and alongside a series of canyons, we began on June 11 alternating between various news sources to keep abreast of fire updates as a huge fire skipped across the bottom of four canyons and headed uphill. As I wrote on June 15, nearly 30,000 acres burned just outside the town of Paradise, and 67 homes were lost. It took several days for that fire to be contained, and for those of us who were not affected, things started to get back to normal.

But not for long.

A week ago Saturday, in the middle of the afternoon, we started hearing thunder. And then it got louder. There were not many "one one thousands" to say between the flashes of light and the amazing crashing noises that went along with them. We also heard zaps and cracks and pops. It didn't take us very long to get all the cats into the house (not that we needed to coax them) and by that evening, we started to hear about fires that had been started by the lightning. By Sunday night, hundreds of fires were burning throughout Northern California, over two dozen of them here in our county. And it wasn't long until we discovered that we were literally surrounded by fire.

And smoke. Lots of smoke. For three days, we could hardly see through the trees to the house next door.

There are firefighters here from all over the state and even out of state. We have been constantly checking the Internet, television and radio to see which fires are getting bigger, which ones are spreading to where, which ones are merging, and which might be threatening us (none, so far... whew!), and who is being evacuated from where.

On the day when we discovered that a fairly close neighborhood was on evacuation alert, we started getting organized ... just in case. So now we have satchels and canvas sacks full of pictures and important papers all packed up and ready to be carried out the door. The cat carriers (five of them!) are stacked in the garage and we have lists of "last minute things" to grab, like medications and money and underwear. And the external hard drive and the laptop.

The biggest worry for us is that there is only one road out of our community, going down the hill. For over ten years, the citizens here have been asking for another exit road. There's an unpaved forest road to the north (which also happens to be uphill), but it's pretty rugged and only good for trucks and 4-wheel-drive vehicles. Our Congressman, Wally Herger, has been in office over twenty years and has done nothing about this problem. Of course, every time there's a fire, he flies around in a helicopter looking at the damage and then attends town hall meetings where he pats himself on the back for having secured 11 million dollars for the road. Which needs more money than that. Which is still just gravel. Which HE doesn't need because HE lives in an exclusive, gated community. And of course he doesn't mention that he only secured that money because citizens hounded him. But I digress ....

Today the helicopters are flying overhead with regularity, carrying those big buckets of water, and the skies are starting to be blue again. Thank you, firefighters!
.

invasion

No terrorist, no alien
from deepest space
could do more damage
than fire storming
every edge
of this mountain town.

One quiet morn
it quickly flares in weeds
ten miles away, jumps
over delta-carved canyons
four in a row, just like that,
heads uphill far too fast
for a small town fire crew.

Homes fall in its path
one after another.

On the high side of town,
at the apex of this
confluence of canyons
we flip from news to news.
Maps spread on the table
we follow the path, measure
the shrinking distance
between us and it, finger-trace
the north road, the south road,
balance the cost of leaving
with the risk of staying.

We field emails and phone calls
from family, from friends,
“Are you alright?” they ask
“Is it close?” and we say
“We are fine,” while we know

that we sit at the apex
of this confluence of canyons,
that no road leads to safety,
that we are
at the mercy
of the wind.
.

daylilies as metaphor

On the very day an ultimately devastating fire was beginning to rage toward Paradise, just a few miles down the mountain from where we live, our garden presented us with this group of fiery orange daylilies:


Aptly named as they are, this particular group was gone the next day, replaced by a smaller and less spectacular array. Unfortunately, not so the fire. Although we were safe in our home the whole time, the town of Paradise suffered some tremendous losses: over seventy homes, about 30,000 acres, and, if we are lucky, some complacency about how we should act when we live in a fire-prone area in a drought year during a windstorm.

I am always amazed when I drive around town and see people with their cigarettes hanging out their car windows. It takes a particular kind of stupid to act in such an irresponsible manner in a forest town that is not particularly known for its humidity, and in which the fire danger is more often high than low. And if you suggest that people stop burning their leaves, even though they have access to yard waste pickup right in front of their own houses on a biweekly basis, some of them scream about their individual rights and the dangers of tree-huggers, usually accompanied by frantic wavings of the American flag and projectile spit.

If you live in a fire area, smoke with your car windows closed, please.

gemstone quiz

This morning I did a gemstone quiz. Here's the result:

Your Gemstone Says...

You are stable, strong, and full of life. You are an inspiring person. People turn to you first for leadership and advice. You are able to gently help people get to where they need to be. And while you aren't afraid to lead when necessary, you are never heartless or bossy.

The Gemstone Test

Now this is all very well and good, but I'm not sure people I know would agree with the part that says I'm not bossy. :-)