Fire
I'm sitting here at my desk, 100 miles away from where the fires have done their damage in the last five days, and yet my eyes burn from the smoke, and my lungs struggle to breathe more than usual. But more so than any of that, my heart hurts like never before. I look at pictures of the charred ash residue of what used to be a neighborhood in Santa Rosa. The people that did not get out in time were essentially cremated in place, with fires raging so hot, it melted the aluminum wheels on their cars (aluminum melts at 1000ยบ+F). And still the fires rage on, hungrily consuming everything and anything in its erratic path. Jumping over the 6 lanes of divided highway that is US 101, over tops of hills that used to provide a modicum of delay, racing into populated areas and devouring neighborhoods like sapling trees in a forest.
They are using a 747 jet converted into a fire plane to drop fire retardant onto areas not yet destroyed. And even that seems like so little. I look at the pictures and see ashes where vineyards grew, and burning embers where there was once a dairy farm. Unlike the big wineries, most of these are family vineyards & farms, passed down from one generation to the next for over 100 years. If the family was lucky, the vines had been harvested before the fire hit them, and there is some hope that maybe the roots of the vines were not completely destroyed.
The fires do not affect me directly, and yet they do. The sky is yellow-brown at sunset, and hazy during the day. The sun shines as an orange globe through smoke infused air, even before then, and the fog is no longer gray. I look up to see the stars, and only the brightest ones shine through. The fire does not take evenings or nights off; it continues to rage on through the dark, lighting up the sky with it's angry white & yellow flames. The resulting smoke spreads for hundreds of miles. I have no choice but to breathe the smoke-filled air.
I opened my windows today for the first time in days, even though the air is still listed as "unhealthy for sensitive groups." My asthma puts me in that group, but the stale, hot air in the house can't be any better. I know I will have to close them soon, they've been open almost an hour, but just the feel of air movement, the song of birds in the trees, and the roar of the ocean in the background make me feel better. But I still want to cry.
There is a rumor that the fire that consumes Santa Rosa was an act of arson, but there is no proof. And at the temperature the fires burned, there may not be anything to investigate. Climate change may indirectly have had a hand in it, but mostly because of the huge amount of rain we got last winter allowed everything to grow, much more than in the past few years. I wonder how much of the reservoir water has had to be used to try to stop the fires. And it's only the first part of October. The rains are not due again until the end-ish of November. And after 6 months of no rain, with many more hot days than usual, the whole of California is like one giant tinderbox, waiting for the match to strike.
And when it does, we will grab what we can and run for our lives yet again.
They are using a 747 jet converted into a fire plane to drop fire retardant onto areas not yet destroyed. And even that seems like so little. I look at the pictures and see ashes where vineyards grew, and burning embers where there was once a dairy farm. Unlike the big wineries, most of these are family vineyards & farms, passed down from one generation to the next for over 100 years. If the family was lucky, the vines had been harvested before the fire hit them, and there is some hope that maybe the roots of the vines were not completely destroyed.
The fires do not affect me directly, and yet they do. The sky is yellow-brown at sunset, and hazy during the day. The sun shines as an orange globe through smoke infused air, even before then, and the fog is no longer gray. I look up to see the stars, and only the brightest ones shine through. The fire does not take evenings or nights off; it continues to rage on through the dark, lighting up the sky with it's angry white & yellow flames. The resulting smoke spreads for hundreds of miles. I have no choice but to breathe the smoke-filled air.
I opened my windows today for the first time in days, even though the air is still listed as "unhealthy for sensitive groups." My asthma puts me in that group, but the stale, hot air in the house can't be any better. I know I will have to close them soon, they've been open almost an hour, but just the feel of air movement, the song of birds in the trees, and the roar of the ocean in the background make me feel better. But I still want to cry.
There is a rumor that the fire that consumes Santa Rosa was an act of arson, but there is no proof. And at the temperature the fires burned, there may not be anything to investigate. Climate change may indirectly have had a hand in it, but mostly because of the huge amount of rain we got last winter allowed everything to grow, much more than in the past few years. I wonder how much of the reservoir water has had to be used to try to stop the fires. And it's only the first part of October. The rains are not due again until the end-ish of November. And after 6 months of no rain, with many more hot days than usual, the whole of California is like one giant tinderbox, waiting for the match to strike.
And when it does, we will grab what we can and run for our lives yet again.
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