Everyone used to think it was an earthquake to fear if you lived in California. Now we know it’s a wildfire. The first time I lived through one, I was nine years old living in a suburb of San Diego. The fire raged in the state park adjacent to our subdivision. I recall police cars and rescue vehicles driving through the neighborhood with bullhorns telling us we needed to evacuate.
“Bullshit!” was all I remember hearing from my dad.
He was up on our wood-shingled roof with the garden hose, wetting everything down. He had the sprinklers in the yard on at full blast and did not seem the least bit concerned that we might lose our home, or our lives. I remember crying and telling him I wanted to evacuate like all the normal people. He told me if I was so worried about it to go jump in the pool. He was not packing a damn thing and if I needed to do something about it, how about making myself useful with a hose.
The second set of fires I recall raged when I gave birth to my second son. The most devastating wildfires in California history sparked that day and by the time I was cradling my newborn, the entire hospital was filled with smoke. Nurses were wearing masks and we were told that half the staff couldn’t make it in due to evacuations and road closures. I wanted to remain in denial with my new sweet baby but left a day early so that women who needed legitimate medical care could have my bed. Let’s face it, all I was doing was lying around taking Vicodin. We went home to 3 inches of ash on our doorstep and a sig alert, which required us to remain indoors for a week. My four-year old and my husband were bouncing around the house while I tried to bond with my newborn.
The third round was exactly four years later and although we were fortunate to not have to evacuate, we saw people we know suffer from the fires. I recall spending most of my time on the phone reassuring the Professor’s relatives in New York who were going crazy over our safety that we were OK.
I have also dealt with smaller fires that affected my Grandma. We spent hours one year trying to find her when she was taken to an evacuation center by “helpful” neighbors. She slept on a high school gymnasium floor when she could have been tucked into bed in my guest room 15 miles away.
Tonight I see friends on Facebook offering their homes to friends who have to evacuate. I think about how you can remove the terror from most situations if you stay calm and rely on a little help from your friends, swift neighbors or non-conformist fathers.
