De ja fire

Watching to fire in the Los Angeles area brings back memories.

The five fires that are burning around LA have burned 35,000 acres in the last week. It’s doubtless most destructive fire every in January in the United States, and is happening months after the end of California’s fire season, and well before the fire season is supposed to begin.

This isn’t the most destructive or most deadly fire California has seen, but it might be the most costly fire ever seen in the United States, at least a cost of $135,000,000,000 (135 billion), with property damage, lost wages and income, and disruption to the economy.

This fire brings back a lot of memories. When I was in high school in California in 2003 (did I just tell you my age?!?), California had the largest fire it had ever seen. Like the current fire, they were actually a collection of fires (fifteen) that happened at the same time in the same area. About 400,00,00 acres burned in the last week of October, and early November, covering areas from San Diego to the desert north of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The current fires, like the one in 2003 have been intensified by the Santa Ana winds, strong gusts of dry wind. The speed of the wind, intensified by climate change, makes fire spread quickly. Fire can sixty miles away, and with little time it’s at your doorstep. It’s unheard of to have huge fire in January, but California has been in a drought that makes it easy to burn once the fire has started.

In 2003 I watched from the Webb School of California, as fire came up from the hills to the east, slowly spreading toward the Inland Empire between San Bernardine and Los Angeles. The school evacuated 200 teenagers, asking us to take just a sleeping bag and other essentials, to a school a few miles south. I feel like recalling this was late in the evening. We slept – if there was much sleep by several hundred teenagers in the same room – in a large auditorium, and then spent the next week scattered to whatever evacuated places we could find. I stayed in a friend’s house, a few miles away….

During the same fire, around the same time, my parents had to evacuate. The fire, which started in the canyon between San Bernardino. and the San Bernardine mountains to its north (Crestline, Big Bear), blocked the main road to San Bernardino; my mom had a friend who alerted her and she got out just before the road closed. What do you grab except the two dogs, and some clothes? … My dad wasn’t home, he was further north toward Santa Barbara. He got a call – no cell phone at this time – and he came up the back (north) side of the mountain. Instead of evacuating, he stood on the roof with a fire hose.

The wind pushed the fire right up the the rim of the mountain, where some houses burned. We were a hundred yards from the rim, a couple roads down. Houses burned above us, and further down into the valley. Houses in San Bernardino, at the base of the mountains burned. It was a hit and miss with no rhythm to it, and any house could have burned.

Fire is mesmerizing. It’s addictive to watch the news on the weather station and see what’s burning. This is very familiar. It’s entirely surprising and unpredictable.