It’s the morning after. The landscape is bleak, like something out of a B disaster movie. The canyon and steep hillsides all around are black and the air has a sooty smell. Gray puffs of smoke, like steam from geysers, swirl up from oaks that refuse to die. In the garden, three maples, two redwoods, one birch and some small shrubs are toast.
Like most wildfires up here, this one started as a vehicle fire on the southbound I-5 near Fort Tejon. I saw a puff of smoke at 2:30 p.m. and, almost immediately, my son Bobby called to say it was north of the petroleum storage tanks at the mouth of O’Neal Canyon, just a mile from us. By nightfall it would consume more than 1,000 acres.
My daughter Susan asked if I would take the baby and Devon to Frazier Park to meet his ride to a birthday party in Pine Mountain Club. Before I left, I closed all the windows, pulled the deck chairs inside the playroom, unlocked the doors and opened all the garden gates and strapped Amy into her car seat. That was exactly 2:45 p.m.
In Frazier, I stopped at the hardware store and bought a half dozen dust masks.
When I got back, everything was in chaos. Flames crested the ridge above the old ranch house, where my other daughter, Betty, was loading up her terrified 3-year -old and her three dogs. Bobby’s truck was partly packed and the trailer hooked up because he was to start a 6-week job on Tejon Ranch the next day. He loaded up three horses, left three others and a goat tied to a fence. Betty would drive them all over to Tejon. Bobby started beating back flames and hosing down the barn. A firefighter told him to evacuate “before you get your ass burned.”
Bobby replied, “The only way to get your ass burned is if you’re running away.” Cowboys are rarely polite in such situations, but they usually get the job done.
Susan’s husband took the two remaining kids and their dog out of the hot zone, and I drove back up to our house. We still had water and power, so I filled all the water cans and bottles, soaked towels in a huge storage can, positioned the hoses to meet the blaze the way it was most likely to approach. Little did I know it would hit on three sides at once.
Then two fire engines arrived and parked at the bottom of the driveway, between me and the blaze, which was comforting in a way, but not the best place to park “Big Red” (in this case, “Big White”). Just before they moved the trucks up to the house, they yelled at me to drop the hose and get in the house. Now! A minute later two lines of fire converged and a ferocious wind blew the whole half-mile-wide wall of flames up the hill, consuming the pump house and leaving my hoses empty. At that point the spa cover lit up and I attacked it with two buckets and five gallon jugs of water, which dampened the flames but left a bubbling, oozing mess of vinyl and some kind of insulation percolating. Flames scorched the deck and its railing, which I slapped with soggy towels, then a firefighter appeared with a hose attached to a pump truck and sprayed the fence line. He said I really should go into the house, please.
That’s when I got scared. The house, every rough-sawn cedar board of it, was smack dab in the middle of this firestorm. That’s when I prayed.
When I emerged a few moments later, the entire hillside above the house was ablaze, both sides and the orchard and part of the garden below were smoldering. I thanked the powers that be and marveled that we had finished weeding next to the house that very morning. Tankers and helicopters flew over us until dark. It felt like a war zone. No water, no telephones, no cable. (Well, at a time like this, who needs CNN?)
Meanwhile, Susan was trying to drive back up to the house and the official who blocked her said I had been evacuated to the high school. Knowing there was no way on earth they could pry me out of there, she didn’t go to the school, but couldn’t find out if the house still stood.
By this time we had engine companies from other counties, who had no clue what was going on. Our local guys had gone on to fight for other houses in other canyons.
At dusk the wind laid down, leaving behind hundreds of glowing trees to light up the night. In his most comforting manner, Bobby said, “Don’t worry, Mom, there’s nothing left to burn. Except the house.” He warned me about “stringers” (no, not unsalaried newshounds): When burning logs and stumps break apart, they roll and bound down the hillsides and could hit the house. I saw them, seven or eight in just a few minutes, like orange shooting stars. None made it to the house, but sleep wasn’t an option.
About 2:30 a.m. the wind kicked up again, the glowing stumps flared, showering sparks that fell on dead ground.
Then the local firefighters came back. “I don’t want to alarm you,” one said, “But with the wind up, we’d feel better parking here for the night.” They’d feel better? I gave them lounge chairs from the patio and my deepest thanks.
That’s when I prayed again, and slept.