100% Contained — Oct 25th 2007

By Alexia Prichard

Every fall in Southern California, the warm Santa Ana winds kick up and we all brace for fire season. When a particular region is saved from the flames, the fire chief declares that the blaze is "100 % contained." Unless you live in SoCal, you can't imagine the weight that's lifted upon hearing those words.


Fire season means asking yourself: "Of all of the things that I own, what can I be at peace with losing?" Almost every year, we are forced to evaluate our possessions, and every year I am surprised by the things that define me, the things I chose to save. Family photo albums, heirlooms, jewelry with sentimental value, computers with their precious archives, portable musical instruments. Methodically we go through the house, gathering up only those things that will fit in the car. The things that don't fit, we don't save. Or at least we steel ourselves against the potential trauma of losing them.

Having lived here for only three years--and having gone through "only" three fire scares--I am still unaccustomed to cherry-picking through my stuff. I'll look at some nonessential object and feel a pang of emotion, as if that lifeless thing is somehow staring back at me and calling me a traitor. The memories associated with the item come flooding in, and I play a desperate, split-second game of packing roulette. "Isn't there even one little nook or cranny left in the Honda?"

And then there's the house. Here is our spirit cave, our cozy den, our shelter. Here is our long-fought-for dream, the sum of our accomplishments, our home. What must it be like to lose that? I don't ever want to know. But this year, after long battles were waged to save them, more than 1,500 homes disappeared in the flames.

Another thing you learn quickly after moving here is that the firefighters are badass. Working 24-hour shifts, they frequently go hours without food, scrambling over slippery rocks and sand in 90-degree weather, carrying 70 pounds of gear. They set backfires, shovel dirt, hose down what they can, and keep on moving.

I tear up when thinking of firefighters. Many of the men and women on these dry mountains are the same ones who flew out East to help us New Yorkers in the aftermath of 9/11. Grateful residents in SoCal show their support and humble awe in the form of donated food, water, coffee. Yesterday I heard that a Starbucks store, closed due to its proximity to one of the fires, gathered up that day's delivery of sandwiches and dropped it off at the local fire station. You can never do too much for these people.

This year, fire season is especially bad. The lack of rain and intensified summer temperatures turned the already arid landscape into a state-sized tinderbox, waiting for the odd cigarette butt or downed power line to start a blaze. As we all know now, some of the worst brushfires in SoCal history are currently carving their way through the terrain, and there's nothing to suggest that it won't be the same, or similar, next year or the year after that.

At the time of this writing, more than 1 million residents have been displaced, upwards of 1,500 homes have burned to the ground, 2 dozen firefighters have been injured, and five people have lost their lives. Yet in SoCal, fire is still just a fact of life, and certainly not a deterrent to people sticking around. Looking at the current situation, an Easterner like me might ask: "Why rebuild in a fire zone?" The answer comes as quickly and easily as I imagine it does in New Orleans: "Because it's home."

No matter how disparate we are as individuals, at the end of the day we're all in this life together. All we have is each other. You can see that so clearly as the flames burn in SoCal. Our deepest identity is our innate humanity, and that is defined not by what we will choose to save, but whom.

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