Fire Stories, October 9th 2017

It was the dancer Martha Graham who said fire was the test of gold, adversity, and of strong men, and surely the past week has been a testament to that. I was awoken at 4 in the morning on Monday the 9th of October 2017 by a staticy, urgent recorded phone call on the land line commanding: "Be prepared to evacuate. Wild fires raging! Repeat! Be on high alert, evacuations in progress!" I had smelled smoke earlier that night, even stepping outside to see if something in the back had caught fire, but could not see anything, so assumed there was a fire somewhere far away and went back to sleep. After that emergency phone call, I did not sleep again for twenty hours.


What do you put in one suitcase? A life-long collector, my small house is filled with art, bird wall pockets, salt and pepper shakers, teapots, vintage pitchers, mermaids, octopi-themed ceramics, etc. etc. Since my neighborhood in Sonoma was not under mandatory evacuation, I had much more time to pack up than the people who fled Santa Rosa and Napa with only the clothes on their back. My two dogs of course would be priority. After that, the material things: passport, a bulging scrapbook of old photos, before the cellphone digitalized snapshots, a favorite skirt, a large octopus plate that I carried around Italy in my backpack and that made it home in one piece, a framed photo of my mother when she was 18 in Australia hugging a koala. I was too overwhelmed to start loading the suitcase up with more treasures, and it remained half full for the next many days as I vagabonded the Bay Area, staying with kind souls in Berkeley and Mill Valley, not knowing if my house would still be standing when I returned to Sonoma.




I have lived in the Bay Area for many decades now. I was in San Francisco 1989 when the big earthquake happened on a very hot day in October and terrified everyone with its strength and destruction and aftershocks. In October in 1991, I stood at the end of my block in Oakland and watched in horror as houses in the hills were literally exploding from the heat as the Oakland Firestorm swept through. I was married standing on a rock in Yosemite on New Years Day of 1997 as the park was being evacuated during the beginning of the disastrous El Niño flooding that would take place over the next two days. But this North Bay fire? It is a monster.


Over the past week, almost two hundred thousand acres of our county's most beautiful places have burned. At certain points there were 19 separate wild fires burning at once, many zero percent contained after two or three days. Four fires from Napa and Sonoma merged into one giant fire breathing dragon. 1 out of every 10 people in Sonoma County are evacuees. 5700 structures have burned to the ground. So many people have lost everything. And those who are still in harms way, who evacuated either voluntarily or by order, live in a constant state of anxiety. Most people I talk with have been obsessively watching the news, whipped into a fearful despair hearing about "winds picking up" or flinching every time the cell phone pings with a new evacuation notice from Nixle. "Please don't let it be my neighborhood."


I have seen so many surreal sights during this time: cows wandering around a steaming blackened field, myself trying for normalcy by walking near my house with a mask on and seeing the hills on fire, little spots of orange flame amidst dense tornadoes of smoke. The bees who usually zoom and buzz, drinking in a circle around the bird baths were dopey and staggering from the smoke. The sky was raining ash. You take a shower: campfire smell. You come inside the sealed off house: burnt fireplace smell. How do the birds and animals manage to function, their lungs so much smaller? I go to work an hour south of my house, dogs and suitcase perpetually in the car, to try and connect with others and get away from the smoke. Yesterday, a nurse from Santa Rosa and a man from Napa both showed up at the flower shop at the same time to buy flowers for the people who were hosting them while they were evacuated. As they were trading stories, I raised my hand and said: "Sonoma" and we all three spontaneously hugged and started crying. It is the un-knowing that wears on you. But we are indeed the lucky ones who still may have a house to come home to. Fingers crossed. Knock on wood.


I drove an hour north yesterday evening to stay at a hotel and for the first time in a week, I saw the stars at night. When I was about half-way there, I realized I no longer needed to wear my mask. 80% of the guests at the hotel were refugees from this fire, and their stories were heartbreaking: "I jumped in my car with my wife that first night, without even having time to pack. We were going to head to shelter at my son's house. Then we heard that he lost his house too." Many of the firefighters who have not slept in days continue to battle this giant, even after losing their own homes. Every single person I encounter has either lost their own house, or has friends who have lost everything. The farm where I buy my produce burned. My favorite two hiking trails burned. Even if the nearby vineyards did not burn, their crops are tainted by ash. Napa and Sonoma, both dependent upon tourism, are like ghost towns. The scope of this fire is mind-boggling, and it will be a shock to see the aftermath, the post-apocalypse reality of what now I can only picture in my imagination.


Friends and neighbors and co-workers have been so supportive, supplying fire updates, places to stay, general kindness. I want to think that if my house is still standing after almost a whole week, dare I think it may indeed survive? It is supposed to rain on Thursday. Meanwhile: the dogs, the suitcase, and the mask remain in the car.