Unhappy Anniversary

The last photo we took of the wall of flame coming over the hills toward us as we evacuated. 

Tonight is a grim anniversary for my family and neighbors: eight years ago (!) in the middle of the night, the Tubbs Fire destroyed about 5600 structures, including ours. It also killed 22 people, and was only one of more than a dozen fires that broke out all over northern California during a freakishly intense and dry easterly wind.

My graphic novel, A Fire Story, says about all I have to say about it. I would only add that, at the time, I thought our fire was one of those once-a-century random disasters that happens sometimes. In the years since, as I've watched the western half of North America erupt into flames and our record of "Most Destructive Wildfire in California History" has been eclipsed again and again and again, I've realized that we were victims of climate change, and my book is an early entry into a growing body of work on what living in a climate-changed world is like. 

The street into my neighborhood. This is the exact spot I wrote about in the book, where I realized the scope of what had happened and uttered several "fucks."

Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago; other times, like yesterday. Karen and I still look at each other blankly, trying to figure out if we had some item--a bowl, a tool, a piece of clothing--before or after the fire. Random stimuli raise the hairs on the backs of our necks. It changes you forever, I think. Or at least for eight years plus.

It's cool and cloudy in northern California tonight. We expect a little rain tomorrow. There is nothing we appreciate more than rain in early October. 

Our home shortly after sunrise the next morning.