Wildfire

I've been following the coverage of the San Diego fires closely.  The eerie thing is how much of the area I can picture from just the line-by-line descriptions and evacuation alerts.  I knew the region far better than I realized.

The color and smell of those smoky skies is something unreal and unlike anything else.  Growing up, the smell of brush fires in the distance was a regular feature of childhood; one of the hardest things about living in the Midwest was not freaking out when people burned leaves in the fall; I'd smell that leaf-brushy smoke and worry about wildfires.  Some people worry in the night about burglars or terrorists; my midnight fear has always been fire.

When my friends' houses in the backcountry burned, many things were vaporized, not even leaving ash.  It's somewhat disturbing to think that less than an hour's drive away I was inhaling things like televisions and automobile tires while the soot drifted down to coat cars and plants and windows.

And now the cycle's repeating.  My friends evacuated with time to spare, and are hopeful that this time the fires will spare their new homes.  Even though it's a horrible time, and I'm thousands of miles away, I have this odd regret that I'm not there.  Smoky and dangerous though it is, California is part of who I am - even though it's likely I'll never live there again.

(In response to this post at Creek Running North.)

Comments

[Jane Dark]

I'm sorry, Rana. And I can't quite fathom the news that at least one of the fires is arson.

My students are having a hard time even picturing what the area must be like -- for so many of them, they've lived (like me) in an area where that lack of rain is almost unfathomable.

[Rana]

My friends were able to return to their homes today; happily, everything seems to be fine. (One of the few advantages of having gone through a catastrophic burn - it gets rid of accumulated fuel.)

It's funny about the lack-of-rain thing; I'm more used to it now, but the whole idea that you have rain in summers, or that one not only can grow crops without irrigation, but that one can grow crops depending entirely on precipitation, still strikes me as bizarre on a gut level.

We're having rain now, and I'm enjoying it - but understanding that we're having a drought here is an intellectual exercise rather than a felt one. The "drought" is equivalent to a normal, or even above-normal-rainfall, year out west.

[DM]

I know how you feel. I grew up in the Bay Area and went to graduate school in the southland. Thanks to the GSA, I was even in San Diego two weeks before hell unleashed this latest round of fires. While the whole tenure-track process has taken me out to and will probably keep me on the east coast (once you finally get that position, it is really hard to go back into the AHA's pit of despair again (not sure if you remember me from the days of Invisible Adjunct)), my heart and soul will always be in California. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who are suffering there now.

[Rana]

I remember you - so you've found a position, then?

It sounds like we have overlapping geographies, since that second sentence describes me too. :)

[DM]

Yeah, I finally broke through, or maybe broke out of/escaped from Hades. I am at a Community College, but, at least it is a nice one in a part of the country I like. Even though this means spending my career away from California, I never want to go through this AHA process again.

[Rana]

No... D. is going through it right now, and I've learned that the best way to keep us both sane is to be supportive while simultaneously pretending that the job search is not happening. It's hard enough for him without me getting excited (and disappointed) about the various possibilities while the chickens are still unhatched.

Are you on Facebook, by any chance?