After the Fire...

Driving home to Orange County under a blood orange sun, surrounded by the ashen smell of a million people’s pain, I thought about the randomness of it all.

Ray Siposs, a video producer based in the San Diego County town of Vista, was okay but unsure when he would receive the almost inevitable evacuation order. Steve Dark already lost his neighborhood church in Malibu, and had yet to assess the damage to his house. My sister was enduring another day of no power, phone or Internet service, though the fire threat had subsided. My former business partner’s uncle had yet to be accounted for, though with the full evacuation of Lake Arrowhead, we’re sure he at least made it off the mountain.

And me? Just another day of paradise by the wild fire’s light, shaken but not stirred by an Orange County fire that got within a few miles of home, leaving only raining ash and frayed nerves in my humble corner of the OC.

Nothing breaks the spirit of a Californian like a fire. Earthquakes are a piece of cake – no warning and over before you know it, assess the damage and move on. But fire starts quietly and then grows, moves and acts as if with conscience. It can change instantly and speed up or slow down, teasing you with a schoolyard bully’s joy.

For most of the country the fires are over now. The President felt our pain, the governor defended his response, and Qualcomm Stadium will host football again.

But for too many of us – those who lost homes, those who had to evacuate, those who didn’t know what would happen and those who took in the tragedy with every smoke-filled breath – the fire, as the song says, still burns.