PLAYING WITH FIRE

It’s 6 a.m. on Wednesday October 24, 2007. Still dark. The firemen from Atascadero just left. They lined up their 5 truck armada across the street and drove to the next fire in San Diego. They’ll pick up their gimped engine which has been stalled without an injection pump along the way in Long Beach.

My house is a mess. Everything I own is pushed into piles in the middle of the floor. The kitchen table is heaped with stuff. I’ve just opened the windows and for the first time can smell the smoke. My dog and cat are looking at me. Though I just woke up, I am feeling of breed of tiredness that is very new to me. It’s a combination of anxiety, deep gratefulness, surrealism. The feeling today, however, is much calmer than the past 3 days, my brain is functioning in a bit more linear manner and the adrenaline high has subsided. Tears are finally coming; I didn’t have time for them the past few days.

Where to start? The beautiful men who stayed with us for two nights sleeping on the lawn and in the garage? The stories they told us about the 100 foot flames just over the hill and how they kept the smoke from the horses in the coral? The fear that made my dog go limp and required two firemen to carry him to my packed car to evacuate? The New Yorker magazine reporter we found wandering around our neighborhood yesterday looking for a story? The dinners we cooked for the firemen? The care they took to put our blinds down in the houses when we left? Standing on the hill with our neighbors, dogs, kids, some crying, some screaming, watching the flames licking at the edge of our homes? Five men in yellow suits sweeping my driveway in boredom hoping the fire would come over the hill for them to spring into action? The humanity of 8 firemen carrying boxes from our cars when we came home?

As we stood in the hot sun on a road above the mayhem Monday, we gave each other encouragement and water. Some of the conversation was banal, some chest bashing amongst the men and others told war stories of fires past. Who had stayed to fight for their homes? Who had left? What did they bring? One panicked young mother squeezed her 5 month old in her arms while telling of her dog’s ash urns she chose to put in the car. Her young buck agent-esqe husband thought it a waste of space. Another woman passed out squirts of sunscreen. As I looked behind me, the street was lined up with an inordinate number of stuffed Porsches and Escalades; panting dog heads hanging out from every car. My dog sat in the dirt next to me and my pussycat meowed while perched on my jewelry box inside my stuffed little car. I had a little carved jade cat, a childhood trinket, in my pocket. Why I grabbed that along with my cowboy boots and down jacket I am not sure. I wasn’t even sure if I’d brought any underwear, but I knew I had my insurance papers, old photos and computers.
I remember looking at the cadre of shiny, expensive cars and saying to myself, “wow, Mother Nature, the great Equalizer.” As I looked ahead: billows of black and white smoke blasted skyward and were interspersed with huge, raging flames. The fires broke out in a dance of ferocity all over the mountains below. Superscooper planes growled over us to pickup water from the ocean. Biplanes zoomed overhead and dipped their wings so close to the earth, it felt we could touch them before they bombed the flames with loads of bright red flame retardant. We cheered. Those pilots were in their element and enjoying this more than Christmas morning. You could just tell. More than 4 helicopters with long dangling mono arms with giant bags of fire retardant buzzed up and down from the fire camp, just below, loading and dropping, loading and dropping. The sea was outstretched beyond it all, but it too was stirred up from the 60 mile per hour hot winds. The whole thing was surreal and frightful. I can hardly believe my home is still here and I am sitting in it writing this.

The fires are out. More than 1400 firefighters left between last night and this morning to go to San Diego and Arrowhead to help others who are still in the thick of it. The road is quiet except for a parade of police cars, power and phone trucks and departing fire engines (all who we learned respond in a group of five) from as far away as Arizona, Mount Shasta and beyond.

One of the most comforting things about this experience was the access we had to information which no one else had – not even the firemen staged here. My neighbors, my heartfelt friends, Rory and Shannon, are Arson Watch volunteers. This allowed us access anytime and anywhere we wanted to go. They stuck magnetic signs on their red Jaguar, a radio antennae on the roof, credentials on fluorescent bibs and off we went. We nervously laughed about the irony our “Arson Watch Jaguar” and drove through live fires, hung out with firemen directing helicopters from a walkie talkie, watched giant trees explode into flames and personally witnessed our Emergency Medical System just kick it. And, most had been up for more than 3 days at a time.

The precision with which the fire, police, air and ground crews worked was awe-inspiring. The minute the fires went cold, the army of telephone and power trucks marched in and began to repair the phone and power lines. Everyone was in place, knew what to do. Said the right thing…………..there’s so much swimming around in my mind and heart about this experience, my fingers can’t catch up to describe it all.

The sun is coming up. Today, we’ll put our lives back together, reconnect our computers, put our things back in place, unpack, wait for the phone service to return. My mailbox has signs on it saying “Food Drink, Ice Here, Thank you Firefighters, You Rock!”

Thank you to all of my friends, ski patrol buddies, business associates, clients and family who have constantly been calling and emailing to check in and offer help; even from far away. I cannot tell you how much comfort that has given me. The roads might open today. Our phone service will return soon. Uh, and my oak trees are getting a haircut.

With much love,

Alyson