The Fires, And A Brush With Fame

Great article:

I'm afraid of fire. Not in the Frankenstein monster sense - I don't growl and toss furniture if someone lights a cigar near me or if a dwarf prods me with a torch. (Hmmm. Well, maybe I'd toss the dwarf.) But, if I see flames more than five feet high that are not attached to a fireplace or a drunkard's barbecue, then my ponytail assumes Afro position.

I live in Santa Barbara, California.

Last week, it caught fire.

I was afraid.

...I went back into my office and started working. About 5:45, a hammer of wind smashed into the backyard with enough force to slam all the house screen inserts shut. We get Sundowner winds here, sort of like Santa Ana's on crack. They come out of the desert, hit the mountains like a tsunami and howl through the valleys - banshees heading for the ocean, raising temperatures ten or twenty degrees after sunset in a matter of minutes.

...The live footage of the fire was not encouraging. The thing was traveling like a freight train. One of the reporters announced that there was a spot fire, caused by drifting embers, two blocks away from our house. I got my wife and dogs out of there, said I'd finish packing and meet them in the next town in the parking lot of a Vons' supermarket. I managed to drag a metal dog crate into the stuffed wagon, which now looked like it was ready for Ellie Mae and Granny Clampett to climb onboard, and locked up the house.

It was a strange feeling. Inside, was every book I had ever purchased since the age of 11 (a "Twilight Zone" paperback) as well as every album, CD and 45 rpm I ever listened to. A lifetime of stuff, spanning three states and a dozen domiciles, just sat there waiting to take a hit. The house itself was the first and only one my wife and I owned together. The site of seventeen of our twenty years as a dynamic duo was now in harm's way.

I took one look behind me.

A massive mushroom cloud of smoke arose, blotting out the moon, a crimson fist of flame blazing within it. Growing up in an oil refinery town, I knew that something had just gone up Big Time.

...So, we slept in the wagon. Or tried to. I wound up sitting in the front seat, watching the fire miles away. All night. I have the spine of a painful Slinky so I couldn't sit too long. I began wandering around the parking lot. I got stopped by a guard who wondered what an aging hippie, cigarette in hand, was doing prowling around evacuee's cars. We wound up having a nice chat. I couldn't sleep. I was trying to calculate where our house was in the flames below.

I wandered around the outside of the gym. A fellow asked if he could talk to me. I thought he was from the Red Cross. It was 3 AM. It turned out he was from the Associated Press. Now, it's hard for me to become emotional without clinging to humor. I told him I didn't think we'd have a house left, describing the scene and adding, "I was waiting for Dante and Virgil to show up."

...After a few hours at the computer, while waiting for a 4 PM news conference, I opened my e-mail. There were a lot of messages from friends. One said: "Google: ed naha dante virgil." I did. There were 11,000 hits. My A.P. quote found its way to news sites from here to Hong Kong (I'm not kidding.). There was some dark humor to that. As an aging writer, I always try to get my name out there for prospective employers. I never thought being scared shitless would be a big publicity move.

That evening, the fire seemed to be holding in place. The winds had died down and hadn't picked up as forecast. I hadn't had any real sleep in thirty-six hours. I was still wired. My wife came into the office and said "Fox News is on the phone." I thought she was kidding.

A producer for "Fox AM" had seen my quote and wanted to know if they could do a phone interview "live" the next morning. Most people don't react like that in calamities, he said. Wotta funny quote! I thought long and hard about the offer. Fox? Me? My mind went into overdrive. This could be a whole new career! I could be the Dennis Miller of disasters! The pain pundit! The calamity commentator! I asked what time the interview would be. "8:15 AM, East Coast time," he said. That would be 5:15 AM my time. "That's not an interview," I said. "That's an exorcism." He loved that quote, too.

...The cause of the fire would be discovered. Ten college students built a bonfire for an all-night party at the ruins of a 1920s private garden, "The Tea Garden," and didn't quite put it out. They built a bonfire in Red Flag fire alert weather, with high winds forecasted and nearly no humidity. Their names have not been released. Nobody is sure if they'll be charged with anything more than a misdemeanor.

I personally would like to review their SAT scores.

The homes that went up were big and small. Homes that have seen generations come and go, some built by the families themselves, were reported as being "estates" and "mansions." The Montecito angle was played up because of celebrity residents like Oprah and Rob Lowe. By the end of the fire, the national news had somehow come to the conclusion that it affected only the rich and the famous. Christopher Lloyd lost his house. So did over 200 of his fans. For every Rob Lowe, there are a hundred John and Jane Does living in our hills and valleys.

...Whenever there's a major fire in California, there arises from the hinterlands a smug "that's what you get for living there" reaction which I've never fully understood. Yes, California is the brunt of many a joke because of its lifestyles, movie stars and whackjobs. I've been out here 25 years and I still make fun of some of our more bizarre occurrences. But snickering when a person loses everything?

I actually heard one guy say: "Well, people should know better than to live in the hills or the valleys." Dude, there's nothing out here BUT hills and valleys. And deserts. In fact, it's a geographical condition found with alarming frequency in this country. Collectively, it's known as the Southwest.

...To all those who, for some reason, seek to editorialize straight news events and disasters, here's something to chew on. The East Coast gets hit by hurricanes and blizzards. New Orleans is built below sea level. Several states sit in what's known as "Tornado Alley." San Francisco is perched on a fault line. Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert.

Rivers flood. Forests burn. Winds howl. The earth shakes. Mountains crumble. The sky punishes. Zip codes don't enter into the picture.

We're all guests on this planet, pundits. It's a gift. It's a responsibility. It's our mother. It's our child. It's not affiliated with any ideology or political belief system.