This Is Not a Drill

Maybe one day you will be at the grocery store, your first trip there in a week or so, because you were out of town on an adventure with your college-aged daughter. You will be at the store and one of your neighbors will send a text that there is a fire in your town, just off the freeway.

It’s hard to know what to do at that moment.

How big of a fire? A little one like the ones that happen on the freeway fairly regularly that they knock down in a few minutes? A big one like the Mosquito Fire that broke out last week across the ridge, not so far from you as the crow flies, that has already burned more than 70,000 acres and destroyed more than 70 homes? Thousands of people are still evacuated from that one.  You see their campers and trailers all around town: at the Rec Park, behind the Bell Road Baptist church, next to the freeway in little makeshift camps.

So then.

What to do?

You look at the people around you who are shopping like everything is normal, like it was for you thirty seconds ago, and you feel a little light-headed.

You want to tell the lady wheeling her cart around you, because you are blocking the aisle, that there is a fire in your town that just started and you would appreciate it if she would freak out with you, as a show of solidarity.

It’s good that you already packed the trunk of your car with mementos that you would never want to lose. They are out there right now, safe in the Grocery Outlet parking lot.

Except then you start to remember some of the things that are still at home, things that are not in the car trunk. Like the darn Go Bags that live at home instead of in the car.

Also, your laptop.

The realization of this is a punch in the gut.

Most days, you bring it with you, because you never know when you might have a chance to write a little.

Not today. It’s on the kitchen table. Because you were just going to town to do one massage and then a little grocery shopping and then head home, where you have not been for more than a week.

You stand frozen for a few moments in the pasta aisle.

Abandon the cart with all the groceries in the aisle and make a run for it?

Buy the groceries?

You decide to buy the groceries.

While waiting in line, you check the best local news site and see that the fire is growing. It starts at an acre. Then up to five. You wait and watch in the slowest. Line. Ever. You want to shout, “There is a fire in my town! It just started! Can I please take cuts so that I can race home and hopefully get there before they tell me I can’t go home anymore, because that happens a lot with these fires? Because although I have already packed some things, this is realer now, and I think there are probably different things that I want to save, too!”

You don’t shout this. You wait in line. You chat politely with the cashier who has to look up the price of your tomatoes. You check the local news source. Any evacuations?  (A few. Just by the freeway. And crap. The fire keeps growing)

(Next time? You might leave the groceries in the cart and apologize to the cashier on your way out the door).

At last. Throw the groceries in the car. Drive faster than you ever do up the hill. Get frustrated at the people who are driving the speed that you normally drive.

There is good news for you. While the fire is continuing to grow, they have only announced a voluntary evacuation zone for where you live. You are still still free to go home. Also? You hit a golden window when the freeway is still open and traffic is flowing almost normally.

Back into your parking spot, leave the trunk open. Grab the laptop and charger. Grab the dirty clothes from the hamper, throw them in a trash bag, stuff them in the car. (This tip came from a survivor of the Camp Fire, the one that destroyed the town of Paradise a few years back. Get the clothes from the hamper, they say, because those are the ones you wear the most) Be grateful that you haven’t unpacked from your trip yet, so you can throw your handy toiletries bag in the car, too.

Also for some strange reason, because when you can see smoke over the top of the hill,  your brain stops thinking rationally, you grab the winter coats. Pictures off the wall that will fit in your suitcase, which fortunately hasn’t been unpacked yet and is sitting there, waiting on the floor. A couple of vitamin bottles, which makes no sense at all.  My son’s favorite electronics. My daughter’s favorite stuffed animal.

It was a day, I tell you.

By the time I got back in the car and headed back toward Auburn, they had stopped traffic in both directions on the freeway and were turning cars around.

I got lucky and was able to get home at just the right time.

We all got lucky and CalFire controlled our fire that same day. It topped out at 48 acres with no homes lost.

It did not turn into a Mosquito Fire. Or a Camp Fire. Or a Caldor Fire. Or any other named fire that has raced through Northern California these last years. We did not have to evacuate for days, like people impacted by the Mosquito Fire are still doing. We came home later that evening.

I started to unpack my car, a little. But then I thought better of it. The Mosquito Fire made a wild run the other day, burning across the street from a nearby high school, one where my daughter ran many beautiful cross country meets. The smoke from that fire loomed larger than the smoke from our fire. It didn’t seem to be heading our way, but who can know for sure?

I talked with a friend yesterday who was under a voluntary evacuation order for the Mosquito Fire. They took their horses to a friend’s house;  they moved a beloved piece of furniture to a safe storage area. They took pictures off the wall. His wife was upset because they had just filled their freezer with meat, so he moved that to his son’s house. That was more than a week ago.

“The darn thing,” he said, “Is that after we moved all that food? I had to go to the store and buy more so that we would have something to eat.”

He also commented that it was like living in half a house, with pictures packed and off the walls and some furniture gone.

It’s our new normal: Sacramento will get hotter than Phoenix. Fires will break out when you are at the grocery store. Every time we are told to evacuate, I move through the process a little more calmly, though, a little less panicked.  I learn things. Like this last time? I forgot the pillows! I was barely on the freeway when I remembered, but there was no going back.  Next time? I’ll remember them.  And CalFire manages to put out most of the fires quickly. They do such good work.

Still. It was a week. There’s a little rain in the forecast for this weekend. It won’t do much for the Mosquito Fire, but maybe it signals a change in the weather pattern.  Hoping for that. And grateful that we got to go home, that we still had a home to go back to.