Wildfire

What to say when your world is on fire?

First: I’m safe. My roommate and I have evacuated from our home on the west side of Los Angeles, where a devastating fire is burning less than a mile away, made downright apocalyptic by the unpredictable Santa Ana winds that regularly howl this time of year. In some areas, the wind is as high as 100mph. I am very much on the “best case” side of things — home still standing, safely evacuated, access to clean air and water. I am writing this 1) because I have received more messages than I thought possible asking if I’m okay/what’s happening and this seems the best way to address it & 2) because I do not know another way to make sense of it.

Tuesday

I didn’t even notice the fire, at first. I was writing, and a friend came over around 11 and asked if I was okay, before pointing towards the window.

We watched over the next several hours, as the smoke billowed into all manner of surreal color and configuration. Despite being intellectually aware that it was perhaps causing destruction beyond my line of sight, it was objectively mesmerizing. This sounds how it sounds, but it looked more “real” than anything I’ve maybe ever seen. It was very difficult to look away from. Planes attempting to contain it circled low, lower. Around 10:30am, when the fire started, it was 10 acres; by 3pm, it had swanned to nearly 3,000.

It’s strange to write about it this way, because as it was happening, I did not feel any danger. We watched the news saying one thing, then would look out our window and see another. We hosed down the house as a precaution, only for it to be bone dry again 20 minutes later. We turned on the sprinklers, called to our neighbor over the hedge as we tried to figure out what to do.

And then, at some indeterminable moment, we weren’t worried, and then we were. We stopped looking out the window and headed upstairs to pack go bags.

I’ve been asked countless times in my life what I would carry with me out of a burning house. Thank God, my house was not on fire, but I can’t describe the feeling of what it was actually like to consider what I wanted to take in preparation that that might come to pass; although, as is typically the case with me in moments of duress, my poet’s heart was eclipsed by a Yankee’s practicality. Some clothes, some food, my passport. Then, hydrogen peroxide, a first aid kit, a flashlight. And then, one thought: my writing. For the saddest song, what instrument?

I looked out my own window as I packed my bag; our trash lady was making her rounds. I waved to her and mouthed, “Are you okay?” with a thumb up, then a thumb down. She merely pointed at the sky, then moved on to the next house. Amazon drivers came and went; neighbors walked their dogs, eyes nervously glued to the rim of the canyon.

Alarms went off; city officials called with evacuation suggestions, then orders. We looked out the window over and over, only seeing the cloud continue to change its mesmerizing shape. Then, nothing left to do but leave.

I decided to attend the class I take in North Hollywood, since I was planning to stay with a friend on the east side for the night anyway. But it didn’t feel like making a decision. I was saying things as though I was going to do them because it was becoming clear that staying put wasn’t an option. It took nearly an hour to exit the canyon I live in, and over 3 hours to get to the other side of town. The first 3 miles of my journey were eastbound on Sunset Boulevard, which, if you have watched the news at all, you will know is now unrecognizable less than a mile west up the road. I inched along for my hour or so next to a truck full of horses. We kept checking in with each other, their expressions varying from terror to indifference. During our hour of journeying next to each other, a single, piercing neigh was let out by the one on the end. It, like most of the events of the day preceding it, was distinctly chilling.

I mostly sat alone with my thoughts (my only thought really being the next moment) until a dear friend called. We cried to one another about our personal heartbreaks, which don’t abate even in apocalypse. She texts me not long after we hang up, suggests I go stay with her parents an hour south if I need to.

By the time I reached class, 3 hours later, the winds were howling at around 80 miles an hour — trees were falling into the streets, trash cans were rolling around, drivers were becoming increasingly erratic. I arrived to my class with all that pent-up energy from sitting in the car vibrating through me. We spent the next 3 hours doing our work, periodically stepping out to call our loved ones, make sure something hadn’t crashed into one of our cars, that we were still doing the right thing. In retrospect of course it all looks very different; we were simply trying to maintain normalcy. The power flickered on and off a few times, and the concrete building felt as though it were shaking more than once. The sounds were like being inside a pinball machine, with unknown particles bouncing off of unseen borders. The sound of the wind outside was nothing short of apocalyptic. When we opened the door to check on our cars in the lot out front, it flew open and took 2 of us to close it.

We all hurried out at the end, rushing off to whatever part of town we could, one girl saying that even though she had been given evacuation orders she was running back home to get her set-up because she had an audition in the morning, which more or less sums up what it’s like to live in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is a strange, even surreal place to live, full stop. I love living here; I love the sun, I love being around people from all walks of life who are generally passionate about something (even if it’s something I find shallow or meaningless), I love the focus on health and gratitude and living well that is so easily caricatured but genuinely compelling to live amongst. But it is distinctly shrouded with a sense of existential dread, both emotional and physical. The threat of fire, earthquake, wildlife is always there. Everything is beautiful, but nothing is safe.

I headed to my friend’s house in Hollywood. The winds were getting worse, so I tried to find parking that intimated the least chance of something crushing my car. She told me yesterday that when I arrived I said, “I don’t understand why everyone is so worried!” which I don’t remember, but also sounds like me, but also feels like it was 3 weeks ago that I said it. We fell asleep laughing about a bad date she’d gone on.

Wednesday

We both woke early, around 6am. The sky looked black even though the sun was out, and the smell of smoke overwhelming. I checked on my car; no fallen limbs in the night, windshield intact. People were wandering around the street in their pajamas, simply staring at the impossible sky. An Amazon worker walked by with a dropoff; construction crews rolled up for standard building maintenance. I crawled back into bed, laid there thinking for a bit, checked the fire app, which said the fire had bloomed to 10,000 acres overnight, in addition to another major fire breaking out across town. Our spot in Hollywood was almost exactly in the middle.

My friend left for work; I made oatmeal, stared out the window at a charcoal sky. Checked the fire map, stared at the wall. Her roommate wandered out of her room with a migraine; we exchanged the information we had read and seen, an exercise in futility. The power has started to go out in various pockets of the city; trees and telephone polls have fallen not far away.

Phone call after phone call came in from relatives, friends: “Are you okay? Is your house okay?” I’m okay, the house is okay, the line of fire retardant is holding, yes the winds are as bad as they’re saying, yes the fire is as bad as it looks, no they do not have the fire under control, yes it is getting harder to breathe, yes I will leave my ringer on, no I do not know what you can do to help except pray.

My friend came back from work; we left for Erewhon to go to lunch. Multiple power lines were out on the few streets we took to get there, with all manner of city workers shutting down streets and manually directing traffic. As we got into the elevator of the parking garage, my roommate called to tell me her friend had lost her house. Everyone in the elevator could tell what was going on even though they couldn’t hear her; nobody said anything. It felt like having leprosy that if they overheard too loudly would catch.

Inside, the mood was discordant: we’re here but we’re not supposed to be here. I go back and forth about an Olipop, decide against it. I get the raw chocolate mousse while my friend waits for buffalo cauliflower that doesn’t come. The people working there aren’t really paying attention to what people are saying and none of us can blame them. The air quality is so bad we have to leave.

We return home and eat before departing again to check on a friend’s house in the neighborhood who is selling it from afar. We walk the 5 minutes up the hill, open the gate. Miraculously, the glasses the realtor left for staging hadn’t fallen. Nothing that we could see was broken. My mom called, urging me to leave and saying things could change on a dime. I insisted we were fine, reiterated that the line was holding and that we’re in the safe part of town. She doesn’t like it and uses that tone only mothers can get away with.

We go home again. Can’t believe it’s only 2pm. My friend across town says her office still has her working, which would be hysterical if it wasn’t just exactly what you’d expect. Time is moving incredibly slowly. The sky looks better, we keep saying how we feel like we can breathe better. We decide to go pick up pizzas and make an apple crisp. At the grocery store, all the eggs are gone, which just feels like covid all over again, but then we realize it could be the avian flu, which would be hysterical if it wasn’t just exactly what you’d expect. I go back and forth about an Olipop; I decide against it.

We go back home, turn on the oven, prep our pizzas, put them in. We begin peeling apples. Her roommate comes out and asks if we should pack go bags just in case because of the power. I call my friend across town in Santa Monica where evacuations still haven’t been issued, ask if it’s still okay for me to come, only to find out her dog is dying and she and her boyfriend have to go to the ER. For exactly one moment I think of all the women who are going into labor right now and then I have to stop.

As the timer goes off for the pizza, her roommate comes into the kitchen again saying the Hollywood Hills are on fire — which are just behind the apartment we are standing in. We look outside; we don’t see fire, but people are running into the streets, and like a switch turning on everything changes and I say, “Something has shifted. It’s time to leave.” I tell them what to pack, repack my own bag, call my friend’s mom an hour south and ask if we can come. They don’t even know these girls and they tell us immediately, “Yes, please come.” I send my friends the address and hop in my car. It takes half an hour to travel the 0.4 miles down their hill. People are inching their cars in all the way down; I see a woman in her bra and underwear throwing things into a bag, then throwing the bag in her trunk. A man with his overweight cat in his arms looking utterly at a loss, leaving on foot, going who knows where.

I make it to the bottom of the hill, where there is an accident to my right but I am going left. It’s about a mile and half to get to the highway, but each turn I’m told to take is met with a road closure or a power line that’s been felled. I’m on the line with my mom the whole time, and I don’t feel scared; I feel like I’m in a video game, I feel like I’m in a chapter of Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow where I accidentally stepped into an interactive simulation that I did not ask to join but nonetheless have to find the escape route out of. The map keeps cutting in and out because the server is overwhelmed, but I know as long as I keep traveling south and east I will eventually make it to the highway. The streetlights are off, people are jumping lanes and turning around in the middle of the street. One woman is literally standing on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. My mama sings, I swear at people as they drive dangerously and cut people off on the tiny side streets we have all been forced to take.

Eventually I make it onto the highway, where it’s bottlenecked from everyone only being able to get on in one place, until it opens up and then I’m flying. My friends text to say they’re not far behind. I tell my mom to go to bed, she stays on the line and keeps singing while an endless line of relatives texts her and prays.

I arrive in Anaheim. My friend’s parents greet me so warmly and normally and also look at me a little like a wild animal, unsure of what it will do. I get in the shower as soon as possible, only now noticing how dusty my skin feels. I scrub my scalp like it might fall off. My friends arrive; we thank our impossibly gracious hosts and fall to our beds, which are so comfortable. My friend brought her pizza that had been cooking when we got the news, only to unwrap it here and see that she made it on the cardboard because she was so out of sorts. My own burned to a crisp and is still sitting in her apartment. We fall asleep laughing again, though this time my throat is so dry from the smoke it turns into a cough. What else can we do?

Thursday

We wake earlier than we hoped; grateful to have slept at all. We make a proper feast: oats, eggs, a smoothie, pumpkin bread, coffee. I feel my own shock begin to settle in. We talk as though we can head back home today, but the more we talk the more we can’t figure out why we would be able to. The news makes it clear that we won’t; the fire by their apartment in Hollywood was contained overnight, but the one in the Palisades is still raging with 0% containment and the air is toxic in certain parts of the city. They’ve asked people to start boiling water and minimize their usage overall. I do the crossword while they pick a time to go see Nosferatu. Before they leave, we go for a walk, where every 5 minutes or so we fall into silence and remember what we’re doing down here. When we crest the hill we can see the smoke billowing into the ocean. I take a deep breath. It still looks beautiful.

They go to the movie; I lay in bed. I let people know I’m okay. There’s nothing to think. Maintaining routine does not even register as an option. There is no task for me to do but whatever it is I am doing in a moment. I open the book I happened to pick up at the library on Monday; close it. A friend texts to say that she was able to get back into her apartment to grab her wedding dress; that she’s grateful her house is still standing but how even once they can come back it’ll take weeks to clean out the ash and smoke from their belongings. The winds die down. I watch the light change on the window. I feel my brain begin to do the shifting it is forced to do when something new that feels unbearable presents itself. For the saddest song, what instrument?

I wander into the dining room and heat up some chili. My friend’s mom comes out from her office; we chat as she pours herself half a cider and I ask her about the other places she’s lived. One by one her husband comes home, then my friends from the theater. Our chatter is periodically interrupted by news alerts, people from all over asking if we’re okay. My friend’s father asks me what my life is like aside from this and I can’t think of what to say.

We disperse and put in a load of laundry; I’ve already worked through the clothes I packed. I try to write; I look at the wall again. I don’t feel afraid, but I remember something my best friend said when her baby survived an incredibly dangerous pregnancy with 50/50 odds: If she had allowed herself to feel the level of despair the situation called for, she never would have made it.

The winds pick up as I prepare for bed. A friend sends a photo of a news report that shows a brush fire almost unbearably close to the house in our canyon. I can’t believe it’s only been 48 hours since I had to think of what to carry out of it. As we turn off the lights, another evacuation notice blares from everyone’s phones in their respective corners of this house, an entire world away. We stop; we pray it stays small. We try to sleep. We’ll pray, and then we’ll go to sleep.