Mountains, I thought. I can see the mountains! Sure there's some smoke, but it looks good out there.
And, yes the situation is improving if you're not someone whose house has burned down or is still evacuated, BUT the fire is still burning.
The night the fire started a friend in Ojai got the emergency knock on her door at 1:00 a.m. Earlier she'd offered shelter to a friend who was evacuating from Santa Paula. A few days ago other friends who were evacuated from Ojai decided to go to Santa Barbara for a few days to escape the smoke. Then the fire spread and now that's where the worst pollution is. Or maybe not today. Maybe it all blew down here.
I went to run some errands under this morning's rosy assumption. When I got out of the car at the shoe repair about 5 miles north, I choked. Ash blew into the car. The second errand was a half mile to the east from my house and the air was clear. But my neighborhood looked like this. Smoke goes wherever it wants to.
I'm inside now and I think I'll stay in. There's a big wide world beyond my front door, but I'm not going there.
Yesterday and this morning I pulled 44 pounds of paper out of my filing cabinet and had it shredded. I've dusted all the places I never dust. I've refurbished my emergency backpack, ordered some emergency water with a long shelf life, re-organized my writer's space, Earlier evenings of the fire, I made dinners for friends, and tonight seems like a good time to do that again. Ratatouiile would be perfect.
2 comments:
This is all just too weird. Fire is the scariest thing there is. Or at least, one of the scariest.
So hard to imagine living with the threat of fire coming over the mountain. Thinking of you all out there.
Post a Comment