Since Sunday, every time I have checked to see what has happened to the Malibu fire, there has been a new one, in Lake Arrowhead, San Clarita Valley, Soledad Canyon, San Diego, some places not 30 miles from where I live in the heart of the city. The flames eat the brush, and come upon houses in a fast burn, and destroy the safety and security of family after family. One ember and there is a consumption and a desolation as the tendrils waft over what used to be someone's bedroom. In San Diego, some 450 houses have been destroyed. It is hard to keep track of the damage to property and to lives. Luckily there has been little death. I don't know if that has been an accident of fate or the lessons learned after Katrina.
Even where I work, the sun casts a gauzy light on the ground and the clouds are the particulates of the devastation. The outside smells like a newly stoked fireplace, only we know of the disaster over the hills.
Except for one or two of the fires, there has been little talk of how so many came upon us so quickly. Malibu was wires and electrical currents crashing against one another and throwing sparks in the Sunday night wind. The perfect storm because of our drought conditions and dry foliage. But, I can't help wonder if there is more to it. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I always have this unsettling feeling that someone is testing our ability to protect our ordinary lives and our surroundings. I wonder if as the days go by, and if the wind settles as it is beginning to do, whether questions will lead to answers that make speculation fact. I hope I am wrong. It is enough to have nature do us terrible damage. We do not need more from the hand of man than already we suffer.
On the ride home, everything looked the same going up Beverly Boulevard. The usual landmarks were intact. There is no fire here, just the remnants of fire elsewhere. But the reporters on every station talk about the worst firestorm in California history, and we are declared a national emergency with 500,000 or more people evacuating their personal preserves for bare cots or the kindness of family and friends. The air is hot at 7. There is a dead calm along the city street that seems to portend something more fearsome--what we usually call earthquake weather, but tonight is firestorm weather. The last thing I notice as I walk into my city apartment is the muted moon, full and warning.
I think of Dante, "All who enter here, abandon all hope." It has been several days Il Purgatorio, more for some than for others. Life is a contradiction. The very fires that wreak havoc provide for the most beautiful sunsets.
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