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Thursday, October 25. 2007
The Firestorm Continues
It’s 7 pm. Wednesday Night and as I walked over to the sliding back doors to the patio, a white moon was visible, rising in the Eastern sky. Not a big deal usually, but tonight it’s a Christmas present two months early. After three-plus days of smoke-filled skies, getting a nice view of the moon—sans the coloring effect of smoke-filled air—is about as welcome a sight as we can have.Not so for everyone in San Diego this evening. Some friends were able to go home tonight, grateful to sleep in their own beds. Others, not so lucky. They couldn’t even get in to view the remnants of their homes. How do you console someone who now is, for all intents and purposes, homeless? And not because they drank their life away, or drugged or gambled the life out of their existence, but because nature had its way with us — is still having its way with us — and there’s no way to rationalize how we could have done things better or different.
It’s easy to sit here and write, “Nature is capricious,” because everything I had when I woke up Sunday morning is still here. But the truth is nature has no design to hurt this person and not that one. Surely, calamities such as these wild fires will intensify the fire of spiritual and religious emotions in the believers and may even ignite the fire of devotion in non-believers. Honestly, can’t count the number of times I said “Thank God,” in various conversations these past three days.Really no reason to debate the existence of god or God here; whatever gets you through the hardship, heart ache, loss and redemption, we all have to get through this and if you’re stopping in at the chapel of your church, or your synagogue, mosque or temple, by all means, do so. This is not the time for theological debate.
But I must admit there is at least a modicum of “evidence” to support the existence of a Supreme Being. In 2004, during the Cedar Fire, my brother and I were set to evacuate. Of course, I had planned on carrying Carl, kicking and screaming, but we were ready to evacuate. But, for whatever reason, the winds died down with the fire less than two miles from our home and we were out of danger.
Same this time. Was all set to evacuate Tuesday Morning; the sky was dark and brown from all the smoke, the fire marching quickly and relentlessly in a Southwesterly direction, right towards our congested enclave of San Diego. And then it just stopped. Went in another direction. A message from “God” to me? What do you say to the thousands of believers and non-believers alike who are homeless tonight as a result of this fire? God wanted to save Tim and everyone else in his neighborhood? I don’t think so. Nature is capricious but if you want to insist it’s God and his Angels looking out for me, thank you for the concern and compliment because if you’re praying for me then that means you have, for me, some love or other positive sentiment and who can reject that? So, by all means, pray for all my San Diego neighbors and me. Love is a wonderful thing, regardless of how you express it.
For me, the Witch Fire is in the past, it’s implacable appetite going off in another direction, Northwest and, believe it or not, back East, towards Julian, a favorite place for San Diegans to hang out on the weekends and a lovely place for all things involved with apples, especially apple pies. Julian, for the most part, burned to the ground in 2003 during the Cedar Fire and now, four years later they will have to weather this firestorm.
Yesterday, the Harris Fire, the first to be reported Sunday, near the international border with Mexico, had consumed “only” 25,000 acres. Now, it’s moving in on 100,000 acres. It too has reversed direction and is heading East and as I type the county emergency system is issuing new evacuation orders for communities that, on Monday, thought they had been spared from destruction.Santa Ana winds blow from East to West. Hot and dry, they bring the desert air out to the coast where it cools over the ocean. In Wisconsin, we had “Indian Summer,” that part of fall that reminded us of what we would be missing about summer. Well, in California, we have the Santa Anas. All it reminds us of is that we had a long, dry summer and wild fires can take us at any moment.
On Camp Pendleton, once “home” when a Marine, the “Horno” Fire, which started in the area of Camp Horno, a small base on Pendleton, is pushing to the ocean — and the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Yep, this fire is threatening not only the power lines that are keeping this Mac humming, but also two nuclear reactors. Can’t be cavalier about all that went into the system’s safeguards, because if there’s one thing nature has taught us: it can undo anything man has done.
There is so much I’ve heard and seen today, so much that has now disappeared from memory, but I do recall the airwing returning to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar; F-18’s arriving in formation and as they crossed over the runway, they broke off to the left, one at a time, in a majestic, aerial ballet one can hardly get tired of observing.As they flew in from the East, the sky was basically blue, the brown smoke off in the far distance, 30 miles at least, over Carlsbad, Oceanside and Camp Pendleton. It brought a smile; they were obviously making a statement with their arrival and it also meant, if the Marines thought it was safe to bring the billion dollars of flying hardware and thousands of priceless human souls that fly and care for the planes, back to Miramar, then there was little chance the fires would come our way.
Just a note on how this will affect the rest of the nation, at least in part: look for the price of avocados to go up. The fires burned a third of the California crop. Don’t know about the rest of the California crops, but you can be sure the prices in your produce department will be higher in the coming weeks.As I sit, pondering the end of this night’s blog, the calls to friends living in the burn areas comes to mind. One I spoke with was able to take he and his family home tonight, their neighborhood spared when the Witch Fire took a sudden turn North. He also told me they had taken his daughter’s horse to what they thought was safe haven in Del Mar, but then had to relocate the horse to Qualcomm Stadium. Del Mar got its evacuation orders yesterday. Tomorrow, the horse, they hope, gets to return to its stable.
My friend Craig, his phone doesn’t even ring. He’s one of those guys who have a Bluetooth in his ear every waking moment. His phone doesn’t even ring. Craig is this big, tall, Notre Dame fan. I always kid him with USC references. One night he actually had some Notre Dame bottled water. You gotta be kidding me Craig! He’s good-natured about it, comfortable living in an area that is so strongly the Trojans’ domain. So, as I sit on a Wednesday Night, I miss Craig, wondering how he is doing, where he is, how his boys are doing. Is his home in the far Eastern reaches of Poway still standing?
As safe as I am, as bucolic as it may be here at the moment, as much as there is bringing gratitude to this household, there are those people, places and things that cause the heart to break a little, because they are gone, or at best, missing for the moment. Grateful me and mine have survived yet another firestorm, sad for the friends who have lost and the friends who I haven’t heard from since it started.
So far, 12 people have been reported as killed by the fires. About 700 square miles burned and by tomorrow that figure will have been surpassed. Nearly 800 homes in San Diego County alone have been destroyed — 800 — that’s mind-boggling when you consider these fires are far from over. These fires have already surpassed the monster fires of 2003 and they are still burning. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Just a short update. Finally got a hold of my friend Craig. He, his family and home are okay. They could see the fire from his front yard, approaching his street that ends at the foot of a mini-mountain. Well, all is right in my part of the world, or as right as it can be under these circumstances.
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