The largest fire ever known

Everyone in San Diego has been touched by these fires.
We all know someone who has been evacuated, who has been forced to leave their home, not knowing if they will have a home to return to.

San Diego County Fire Map

Those not affected directly sit at home and wait. 
We have been asked not to use freeways, cellphones, power.  We email friends, offer our houses as shelter for evacuees. 
The schools are closed for the week.
The sky is grey with ash. 
The air burns our eyes and leaves our throats raw.
We watch the news, watch and wait for the weather to change. 
And the fires continue to burn.

photo Sean M Hafffey/San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma Press

I think of the firefighters who are out there night and day and night.  The word hero doesn’t even begin to describe them.

And I think of how lucky we are to have evacuation shelters and stadiums and friends to turn to (and homes to return to).

And while 250,000 residents of San Diego have been evacuated, I can’t help but think how that compares to 4 million other civilians who have been forced to flee their homes.

If your house isn’t burning, what do you do?  Do you go and help your neighbor?  How far do you go?  How big is your neighborhood?

   

The largest Fire ever known
Occurs each Afternoon --
Discovered is without surprise
Proceeds without concern --
Consumes and no report to men
An Occidental Town,
Rebuilt another morning
To be burned down again.

--Emily Dickinson

Comments

[michele]

It's terrible!
I send you an email few minutes ago, then i thought about your blog…
i hope that comes back the rain!
michele

[Tana]

Oh, my dear, you have been on my mind.

I talked to Nikki (Monique Feil), the photographer who came to the dinners with me at La Milpa last October. I thought she'd moved to Hawaii, and called to ask if her family in SD was okay. "Tana, everything is on fire. The sky is purple and orange, and my car is covered in ash."

I know four farmers there, of hundreds, whose land is imperiled. I pray for all of your safety, and beyond that I don't know what to say. Pretty shitty urban planning, huh? I think San Diego (not to single anyone out, it's all of California) has some exemplary greed and sheer ignorance in plotting out developments.

But God knows I love your farms. 92% family owned? Heaven.

Bless you, honey. I don't know how to help except with my words. My actual money donations will continue to go to the abandoned New Orleans, and I bet you understand. The McMansions can cover themselves.

X O X from your neighbor up north.