It looks foggy out tonight, but it's not. It's the smoke from the raging fires twenty-five miles south of here. Almost 50,000 people have been evacuated as of right now and that number will surely rise. Not only that but it's zero percent contained and the winds are picking up again.
The sunset from the beach tonight was sinister. The sun sank blood red like an open bedsore into the smoke above the ocean.
Right now all my friends down in Ventura are safe. Although Rosemary had to evacuate.
After midnight. Everything smells like fire. A heavy moon is obscured by smoke and ash. The surf is crashing. I haven't heard a night this lonely in a very long time.
The sun rose this morning looking ugly like a dull rotting orange. The yard and streets and cars are covered with ash. The light is diffuse and eerie. I walked over to the park and the trails are empty. The smoke makes breathing difficult. Two girls biked past me with surgical masks on. There were no surfers in the water. City College canceled classes and the parking lots are empty. I cut my walk short. Walking through the ash is like walking through the first fine snowfall of the year in the Berkshires. Puffs of white billow around my footsteps.
The blaze has steadily worsened these past few days. Everyone is wearing surgical masks, even me. Tonight the flames were visible from my neighborhood, Shoreline Park. I sat for a while on Vicky's bench and watched the hills burn. Breathing was hard and my eyes are red from watering. People think I've been crying. (Perhaps I have been.) Luckily the winds were blowing off shore and keeping the fire from getting closer to the city. But everyone is shaky and the park was deserted as were the streets late this afternoon when I drove to the liquor store for heavy reinforcements. Santa Barbara has a very ominous cloud, both physically as well as metaphorically, hanging over it. So do Summerland, Carpinteria, Montecito, and all the way south to Ventura. We are doing our best to hunker down and hold our loved ones tight.
A popular slogan way back when I was in college studying Environmental Sciences was Nature Bats Last. It was on posters and tee shirts and coffee cups. We live on a cooling and dynamic planet. There will be no end to fires, floods, volcanos, avalanches, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, landslides, and blizzards. Not a complete list but you get the idea. Existence will always be fraught with the perils of the vigorously violent growing pains of our Earth.
The fire continues to spread but mostly in the back country. 240,000 acres scorched so far making it one of the five worse fires in California history. The firefighters, including a dear friend, say it will more than likely burn for at least several more weeks. The stamina of these brave men and woman is truly superhuman. I couldn't imagine. When they drive through town in a group people stand on the highway overpasses cheering and waving flags. Several of my restaurant owner friends are giving out free meals and others are sending food up to the front lines. There's lots of charity and gratefulness flowing up and down the coast. Jukeboxes in the bars I frequent are continually playing Fire on the Mountain. Tragedy can bring out the best in a community.
Out of work early tonight. Downtown is deserted. People are holed up worrying about the fire line. Can't say as I blame them. The flames are visible from lower State Street. Vicious red flair-ups against the pitch dark mountains. It is not a reassuring scene.
But up on the Mesa by my house the wind has shifted and the sky is clear for the first time in a week. A large patch to the northeast is totally devoid of smoke and ash. What a stroke of grand luck. Tonight is the peak of the Geminid Meteor Shower and the constellation Gemini where the meteors emanate from will be rising in an hour.
I treat my self to a hefty glass of Sancerre and read for a while before bundling up in my canvas Carrhart jacket with the flannel lining and head over to a dark spot near the beach. Before I get there I already see several meteors. They are brilliant white over the ocean shooting into Orion. The sky is dark, there is no moon, and the water is dark but the surf is strong and loud. For the next hour I gaze into the night seeing about one a minute. Some are short and dull but many are bright with a long trail that leaves a lingering impression on my retinas. It's just a wonderful display of the working of the cosmos. This pile of space dust burning up in our atmosphere. I sit and marvel until my craning neck begins to ache and the night chill starts to penetrate my bones.
I've alternated between watching the show above me and the burning hills off to my left. A strange night that will perhaps precipitate curious dreams. Something that combines the magnificent wonders of our galaxy with the fear of a deadly burning city. I get home and finish my glass and play Bob Dylan singing Shooting Star before crawling under thick blankets while outside the flames still glow and the sky is streaked with arcing luminous lines. As usual lately sleep comes slowly to my scattered mind.
The helicopters and planes started early this morning as the wind has picked up and shifted yet again on the twelfth day of this terrible fire. Now the third largest in California history. At eight-thirty this morning it is dark out at my house and the air is full of ash. Large white flakes are blowing through the neighborhood.
Friends are evacuating. I'm safe up here on the hill by the ocean. Or at least I think I am. The sun is still blood orange. It would almost be beautiful if it wasn't for how scared everyone is. It's getting windier. And it's blowing the wrong way.
Just for something to to do I pack a small bag; meds, glasses, a book, (Mary Oliver's Devotions) passport, Charles Lloyd tickets, computer, a flask, (Glenfiddich 15yr Solara Cask) cash, pretty much the Ferdyn family fortune...... When I really think about it what else is really worth anything? When Johnny lost everything but the clothes on his back in the Paint Fire he philosophically said, "It's god's way of telling us that nothing is really ours." Wise guy that John Reilly.
Now the smoke has blotted out the sun completely. Ash is blowing like snow.
I brew some of Pak's tea and hope for good luck. Double luck. If the winds die down the firefighters stand a better than average chance. But the forecast is not encouraging for the rest of the day.
It is after two wet winters that allowed the brush and undergrowth to flourish and then we had a very dry summer and all that lush greenery turned to brown fuel. Some of the ash is now black, a sure sign that houses are burning.
Anxiety is not good for the appetite. I haven't been hungry in days. Worry worry worry... Not so much for me but for those I love who are scared shitless and on the run.
So I pack a real bag. Well, I'm always kinda packed for at least a few days anyway. You know, like the old song says, "I keep my bags half packed all the time." (Find that reference!) So if I must flee I'm ready, although I'm cautiously optimistic. I have great confidence in the firefighters. They are fearless and indefatigable. I wish I could buy everyone of them a drink. The sad news is that yesterday a brave man was lost. Dying so unselfishly. It is absolutely heartbreaking. My meager tears are meaningless.
Jim, Bob and I ponder opening the bar and decide that we should. Worst case scenario is nobody shows up and we have a drink and go home early. Our chefs are unable to make it in so Bob puts on a pot of Peruvian beef stew so we can at least offer something. Later Todd from the Chase shows up with a grand piece of fresh yellowtail and Jim sears it and passes it around the bar. Business is slow but steady. Friends stop by and are glad we are open. Almost every other bar on lower State Street is closed. We are a refuge of sorts on this jittery night. Everyone thanks us for being there.
The winds die down and I occasionally step outside to watch the flames in the hills above town.
We do end up closing early, people want to be home just in case. Jim and I sit and have a nightcap.
Over the course of a few hours the visible fire is looking more contained and later, around midnight, when I get home I can't see any flair-ups. The firefighters have had a good night.
The next morning the sky's a clearer but the blaze is still only 35% contained. The winds have shifted yet again and are pushing the flames back toward Summerland and Montecito. The Tuckers evacuate for the second time in five days.
Now finally, on the solstice, the longest night of the year, the air is clear and a beautiful slice of a crescent moon hovers just above the horizon. There is only a hint of smoke far to the south, over the mountains. I sip a glass of Margaux and take in the romance of the turning of the seasons. (Oh my pagan heart and bones.) I feel time's inscrutable pull as another year comes to an arbitrary close.
The fire is still burning but all my friends are safely home and the rain of ash has ceased. The worst has past. My firefighter friend says it going to burn back in the Los Padres mountains for another week or so. It is now officially the largest fire in California history. Many lost homes and in spots the devastation is total. But I am amazed at what shines through in the interviews of those who now have nothing and as bewildered and heart crushed as they are their hope and their courage to move forward is paramount. The resilience of the human spirit can be deeply moving as I watch anguish being conquered.
A Post Script.
I had a few drinks last night (New Year's Eve Eve) with my friend Warner who is a retired Santa Barbara fire chief who still works the big fires. He just spent eighteen days at the command post at Lake Cachuma. He said that last Saturday was the scariest and craziest of his thirty-nine year career.
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