Fire People
One year ago, I became a member of a club I didn’t want to belong to – the fire people.
If this piece of writing seems fragmented, it’s because it is, much like our new lives.
We are perpetually straddling the line of gratitude and terror.
My daughter Nicole’s biggest fear – the house burning down – was amplified by tens of thousands when the Camp Fire struck our town and left us all running for our lives together as a family.
We escaped together as a family and we will stay together as a family.
A year later we live in a big Victorian house in Red Bluff – all of us – my husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren.
Faced with losing her entire family, my daughter Miranda, 26 then and her boyfriend Brad of Sacramento, took care of all six of us. Miranda’s an EMT and signed up for a strike team to come into the fire as we were trying to get out.
Our severed community floated all over the country like the ashes that whipped through the wind on Nov. 8, 2018.
In one fell swoop, we, the people who loved to spread sunshine, were incapable of giving. For months we had to be takers and we had nothing to offer anyone else who was suffering either. This was humbling and painful.
The people who helped us from near and far cried for us and showed us a kind of empathy I had never experienced. Conversely, some folks fell away with the discomfort of our new reality.
We approached everything matter-of-factly. As people shared their sorrow for our circumstances, we smiled and said we were OK. We wouldn’t know until much later that we were not in fact, OK.
The civilized life we led until Nov. 7 was turned on its head.
People were jumping into stranger’s vehicles. Nobody was wearing seatbelts because we didn’t know when we might have to leave the car and run. Those who were forced to shelter in place huddled and sobbed hour after devastating hour.
In the wake of the fire we lived in phases. Phase one was simply to have a roof over our heads. Phase two, we needed to get our fire damaged vehicles repaired.
We had an epiphany at the Toyota dealership.
“What’s your address?” The service manager asked. Larry and I looked at each other with blank stares. We explained that we were from Paradise. Tears filled his eyes and poured over his cheeks unabashedly into his goatee. He lost his own home to fire the year before in Santa Rosa.
Our granddaughter Eloise was 4 years old then.
After we checked into the hotel, we headed through the lobby to the elevator. Eloise jumped back away from it pointing wildly at a sign, the one that pictures someone running on stairs away from flames. “Use stairs in case of Fire.”
She thought the elevator was on fire.
We stayed in so many different places we never knew where we were when we woke up. That happens to us still.
Dining out and staying in hotels had lost its luster.
Yes, we are grateful for our lives on the daily. There are other feelings too. Feeling fortunate to be alive when many others did not make it out. Knowing that we suffered one day of running for our lives and people all over the world spend lifetimes doing so. Having family and friends who cared for us and insulated us through the biggest challenges, when many others have no one.
I clung to the routine of going to work. I missed only one day as a result of the fire. My Chico State students who were predominantly freshmen, matured at an alarming pace as a result of the fire. They became serious about journalism. I think in part to make me proud and also to show respect.
One student who was lackadaisical about attending class told me after the fire, “If you can make it to class, so can I.”
Larry did what he does, he wrote a song, “Sifting Ashes,” that chronicled the day. It took seven months to complete.
Nicole grabbed her sewing machine when we left. She made Christmas stockings for everyone in the hotel room while simultaneously caring for a 4-year-old, and a two-month-old.
Our dogs and cats were fostered out to friends and relatives until we could find a more permanent place to call home. One of our cats didn’t survive the fire.
Each second of that day plays back in slow motion like a movie montage. I can still see that wicked looking cloud, hear the roaring of the mighty engine that was the fire, the explosions and feel the ashes falling like hard rain.
It’s true that life does go on and there are many events aside from the fire in which we need to participate, such as weddings, births, and sadly funerals.
Mainly, I want to take the opportunity right now to thank every person who helped us through this. We couldn’t have done it without your grace and kindness. Our appreciation is endless. Each act deserves its own story.
We will not allow this blaze we narrowly escaped from take over our lives.
We will live, laugh and love.
“A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion.” — John Steinbeck
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