Another Fire

It was not the best day for a wildfire to break out near my home this week.

The best days for fires to break out? Saturdays and Sundays, I think. Because I’m usually home and can obsessively check my WatchDuty fire notification app and YubaNet, a local news service. I can see the updates as they flow in. WatchDuty will show me how the wind is blowing: if it is a strong, gusty wind or a slight one, and (more importantly) if it is blowing the fire in my direction or away.

If I am home and the authorities notify us that we need to evacuate, I can load the car with my Go Bag and a few keepsakes. In the past I’ve remembered my Mom’s and Grandma’s handwritten recipe notecards, the Don Quijote and Sancho Panza bookends that I bought in Guatemala. I can make sure I grab my laptop and charger, my journal. Our pillows. Sometimes I’ve remembered to throw the dirty clothes in a trash bag and toss them in the back of the car. A survivor of the Camp Fire, the one that destroyed the town of Paradise a few years ago, gave that tip since the dirty clothes are “the ones that you wear the most.”

But the fire that started near my home this week did not start on a weekend. The Lowell Fire broke out Wednesday morning on the Nevada County side of the Bear River and never threatened any structures or prompted evacuations. Still, though. It was terrifying to walk outside with the dog on a regular weekday morning, in a bit of a hurry because I needed to head to work, and smell smoke: always the first clue that something is amiss. Then I saw planes flying overhead; a few minutes later, two fire engines screamed past my house. There was smoke blowing our way.

It’s a terrible way to start the day.

Because then I have to decide. I am supposed to work, and work is not really an optional activity—not if I want money to pay for my house which is smack dab in the middle of fire country, and also my fire insurance, which is (for now) still active and hasn’t been cancelled. If I leave and the fire grows, odds are good that I won’t be able to get home again. They’ll close the freeway.

But the WatchDuty updates made it seem like the authorities thought the fire would max out at around 30 acres (which would be nowhere near our town) and soon they shared that they had a good line around it. In the end, it burned less than two acres.

In the end? Not a big dealio. No need to worry. No need to panic.

Except try to tell that to my body. I know on an intellectual level that panic is never helpful. My body, though? It smells smoke and hears fire engines and doesn’t get the memo that everything will probably be fine. It panics. It just does. This has happened a few times over the years (seems like every year now), and I still have not figured out a way to be calm and centered when it does.

Another issue with the fire that burned nearby this week? If I left for work, my child would be home alone, and driving is a skill that has yet to be mastered. Since the WatchDuty app made it seem like the fire would quickly be under control, I decided that I would head to town but texted my good neighbors, alerting them that my child who cannot drive was here with the animals and if by some strange occurrence the fire grew, would somebody be kind enough to pick all of them up?

Multiple neighbors responded that yes, yes they would.

I am grateful for my good neighbors. I ended up running late, because I threw some photo albums and a keepsake box in the trunk of my car, where they will live until October. Or whenever the rains return.

That instant adrenaline rush, though. When I smell the smoke. When I hear fire engines. It made me think, all the way on my long drive to town, of whether or not I’m going to be able to handle living here for the next few decades. I love my home. I can actually afford the mortgage—so far anyway. Who knows what will happen with homeowners insurance as the years roll on. I love this land and I have no desire to go anywhere else. And where would I go, anyway? Where is ‘safe’ these days? The rest of the West with wildfires? Texas with floods? Florida with hurricanes? The Midwest with tornadoes?

But that dread when the smoke appears? The panic? How everything could change so quickly on an ordinary day? It hits me harder every time it happens.