A State On Fire

Image from Pixabay

Last night, the town of Greenville, CA was lost to the flames we’re now calling the “new normal” here in the golden state. The people of Chester, CA are fleeing as I write. The Dixie Fire has now grown to be the largest in our state so far and as of today, 8/5/2021, it is only 35% contained. As the year anniversary of the wildfire that took my home approaches, I can’t help but feel what these people are feeling. I know their pain, their bewilderment. How could this happen? What are we supposed to do? How do we live in a place like this knowing that we can no longer control fire the way we thought we could?

One hundred miles away from Greenville, a fire friend of mine was relaxing in Colfax next the river, hoping to spend time with her children and the animals that lived next door to her Airbnb. It was a well deserved break, they too lost everything last August to CZU. However, one moment she’s posting a picture of the precious pig next door and the next she’s showing a smoke cloud rising above her Airbnb as she is evacuating in haste. The most chilling aspect of her reporting was how the farm next to her didn’t really have time to evacuate the animals, instead letting them free so they could try and escape on their own. I can’t stop thinking about that pig, so relaxed and teaching my friend how to be in the now just yesterday, but where is he now as this latest fire in our state burns through the area he called home?

I can’t help thinking of my own goats I left behind. I’d put them in their barn because that’s what equine rescue said to do. That way they could grab them quickly rather than try to chase them. Yet equine rescue wouldn’t return my calls. They never made it up there to rescue those sweet creatures and instead my dear ones died a horrific death. I visited their grave yesterday, bringing them their favorite treat—potato rolls. It was really Abigail who loved the bread, but I had to bring one for each. There are many layers to the grief of wildfire and as I begin to heal from the violent loss of my home, I find that I don’t miss the structures or the things as much anymore, yet I can’t shake the sadness surrounding the animals I left behind. As I sat next to their grave yesterday, I could see the burnt propane tank that was next to their barn, still on my property even though I’ve called the propane company to take it away many times. Nature has begun to grow around it and I imagine that with time, it will disappear under a wild, green blanket of raspberries and new tan oaks. As I contemplate this, it dawns on me that someone had come to my house between the time I fled and the time my home burned to turn the propane tank off. Someone from CalFire, or the county, or who knows, was here, and there’s no way they didn’t know the goats were in the shed. The tank is right next to their barn.

I suddenly wanted to vomit. Who was this person? Did they call anyone to help? Did they see my goats’ faces as they moved on to the next property? What else to did they see and leave behind, knowing they were going to let the neighborhood burn? The Dixie Fire has burned an entire town, but still hasn’t come even close the number of structures we lost in CZU. I can’t stop the sobs, they come from somewhere deep within me, beyond the still waters of my soul, and take over my body. I miss my goats so much. I miss waking up in the mornings and taking them out to pasture. I miss hearing them chat with each other in my back meadow as I worked in the home. I miss how sometimes Bartimus would misbehave and jump the electric fence, just to have a chase with our Aussie, Evelyn, every now and then. I miss that life of farm animals, fresh eggs, and the quiet, green, lush forest.

This state is on fire. Inland, we’ve cut off water to the farmers because the towns there are going dry. In the mountains, fires rage that no one can stop. The temperatures rise in both areas, rendering the outdoors unbearable in the middle of the day. The only livable spaces left at the moment are by the sea, but we can’t all live in this small footprint by the Pacific. Thus the rich are buying up ocean town properties and the homeless are staking their claim under the bridges and enclaves along the rivers that trickle from the mountains to the beaches. Yet even in the village by the sea where I now live, the grass is brown, the trees on the leaves are dying, the gardens are kept alive by watering only, and overage fees are being enacted. Oh the irony to run out of water as you hear the waves of the Pacific lapping at your backdoor.

We can’t all live here. I know this now. Some of us need to leave, but none of us wants to go. Our Eden is literally on fire and the land isn’t casting us out with a reprimand the way God did to Adam and Eve. Instead, her waters have retreated and her flames grow higher and her forests can no longer fend off the end result. Yet some part of me knows that deep in our DNA, we know that migration is a part of life, we’ve just forgotten it. Long before the goddess of wheat, in her quest for global domination, domesticated us and taught us how to put down roots so that we might farm her, we moved where the weather and food would accommodate us. Before the desire to own the land, we roamed the land. Can we do such a thing again? The term digital nomad has been floating in our collective consciousness for years, even before Covid-19 taught us to Zoom our lives away. Physically moving, picking up and going, can we do this? It appears some of us should leave the west and literally find greener pastures. Perhaps wildfire is starting the process for us? My equity is now mostly in my checking, with the exception of the rather large piece State Farm is still holding on to even a year later. This is the case now for more and more of what we call the Fire Clan in California. I belong to a Facebook group for those in the state who have lost their homes to wildfire and damn, there are a lot of us. So many struggling to stay in the state they love but finding that the way is shut.

The gates of Eden may be shut, but maybe it’s a blessing to be one of the first cast out?

Project “Shit, Shower, and Shave” is well underway on our property. The trenches are dug for the utilities. The plumber is working on the septic and water hookups. The electricity will be on by the end of the week and the electrician begins the work of hooking up the wells and home site soon. The tiny house is almost done in the factory. We still don’t have a delivery date, but there’s a part of me that hopes it will be by 8/20/2021, the year anniversary of the day when I found out my home and my dear animals were gone. I’d love nothing more than to turn on the lights, take a shower, and eat a meal with the land on that day.

One year. One whole year to return water, septic, electricity, and a tiny roof over our heads in the place I once called home. We can’t stay up there longer than a night until the internet is connected because there’s no other form of communication and at the moment, I’m not ready to be in the forest alone without a means of knowing what’s going on. The fires move so quickly anymore, you gotta be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Even, it appears, when on vacation.