Thoughts from
San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture

 
Fear of Fire
By Tom Smith

It's that time of year in San Diego again, when you watch the flames on the ridge line and wonder if you will still have a house in 24 hours. It doesn't sound fun and it's not. I should not complain. Hundreds of people have lost their homes already and a dozen have died and not in any way you would choose. I am situated between two fires which the knuckle head on the news has predicted will merge by morning. I am betting they won't, but will check every so often through the night to make sure.

The information hotline was amusing. I had my wife call, because I have a tendency to get irritated. She asked if we should evacuate, and the operator said if the sheriff had not come by to tell us to leave we had no worries. But the news said there were not enough personnel to do that, my wife observed. Well, that was true, the operator admitted. Could we see flames? Oh, yes, my wife confirmed. (But about 3 or 4 miles away on a ridgeline). Well, we would just have to use our own discretion. Good to get that learnt.

For some reason, Jeanne is taking this fire quite seriously. I wanted to leave during that last scary fire, some 3 or so years ago. Our neighborhood was 'voluntarily evacuated,' which means leave, unless you are stupid. Jeanne said we should stay, since we could not actually see the flames yet. The sky had that soothing nuclear winter look, neighbors were packing up and leaving, but we stayed. I adjusted the sprinklers on our patio cover and bargained with God. The wind and the fire just stopped about a mile from our house. Being scared with a mile between you and the fire line is considered wimpy by old hands. If the wind had not just stopped when it did, our house had about 6 hours of life left.

Pack up, they say. Just what are you supposed to bring? Photo albums, various documents, OK. But after that? A despair sets in when you realize you cannot really pack for losing your house. Underwear, socks, your PDA and cellphone. Your two big dogs. Dogfood. Your current trashy novel. A family size bottle of Valium would be nice if I had one.

I am being cute now, but if this fire gets much closer, it will cease to be funny in a very big hurry. The ceasing to be funny part is bad. Fear, anxiety, more fear. You get the idea. I never want to find out what it feels like to find you have no house. I hereby take back all the nasty things I've said about my house.

My precocious 12 year old is reading The Art of War. Watching the news, he says to me "If your enemy leaves a door open, rush through." And then, after the news idiot predicts an even more general conflagration, my son helpfully observes "the door is closing, Dad." I hope it is not a long night.
posted by thomas at 10/26/2003 10:43:00 PM