Remembering Last Year: Living Through My First Wild Fire in Bonny Doon

As I celebrated my 50th birthday this weekend in true fiery Leo fashion in a San Francisco bar filled with wonderful friends and wild dancing, a wild fire raged through 6000+ acres of my beloved Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz mountains. Nearly all of my Bonny Doon friends had remained behind mandatory evacuation lines, some to protect their homes.

I imagined all our houses remaining safe and put the fire out of my mind to be fully present for the party. Several friends there reminded me of how gripped and touched they were by an email I sent them after last year's Bonny Doon fire:

I got a frantic call at 4:00pm Wednesday [June, 2008] from my friend J who had learned the fire broke out an hour before across the street from her house—could I meet her and help her evacuate? I dropped everything, jumped in my car, and picked her up roadside.

For the 14 years I’ve lived here, fire has been my number one fear. Locals say “Not if, but when a fire breaks out…”  For the last two years, I’ve felt the inevitability of it happening. When the Summit fire happened in south county a couple of weeks ago I kicked myself into gear and got us all “go” boxes (grab and go!), made lists of what I’d take if I had ten minutes, if I had an hour, if I had four hours. I had thrown my “go” box in the car to use at J’s. We raced down the road to her house, making plans along the way for what we’d grab. There’s really no way to describe what it felt like to catch first glimpse of the huge smoke plume, right there, five minutes from my house.

After loading my car with J’s life, I remembered that her next door neighbor had a dog and worked in San Jose. I raced up, found Cookie inside, house sealed up tight as a drum. As I came around the back side of his house, trying every one of his dozen sliding glass doors, I caught full view of the fire from across his meadow. Massive. So close I could see the orange glow at the base of the plume. Must get Cookie out. No key in any logical place. Raced back to J’s, called my housemate Regina to go get my phone list so I could track neighbor Tom down…isn’t he contracting at Lockheed Martin? Where is that??

Regina tells me that we’re under mandatory evacuation, they’re packing their car, they’ll stay with my dogs until I get there. I’m still committed to getting Cookie first, I know there’s most likely hours before the fire could get to my house. I call 411, which gives recording saying they’re flooded with calls, dial 0 for assistance. Operator tries to pass me back to 411. I short hand the headlines of the situation and she’s amazing—she stays with me on the line through several attempts to find right Lockheed Martin phone number. It’s after 5pm, Tom’s a contractor, I have no idea in what building, what extension…as I’m musing out loud about just smashing one of the $5000 sliding glass doors (how much does Tom love his dog??), the security guard actually locates him and we’re on the phone together. I find out where the spare key is, I forget to get Tom’s cell phone number, he forgets to tell me there’s a cat inside.

I get Cookie, who’s a big loveable golden lab that first presents as Kujo, but I already know that about her. I get her in my car and it hits me: I now have my car full of someone else’s stuff and someone else’s dog and I need to go evacuate myself and my two dogs. J and I make frantic complicated plans about my car, her car, her motorcycle, roadside car switches, and getting my empty car back to me.

I leave with Cookie and realize as I’m driving back that my friend Terry’s house and two dogs are also close to the fire. She’s away for a couple of weeks and her husband works in San Jose. I have no idea what I’m going to do with two more dogs, but I swing by her house anyway. Her husband is home, thankfully. Seems to be non-plussed. He’s heard that the fire is moving down away from us. I’m just glad he’s there and I don’t have two more dogs.

I get home and my mind is a mess. Regina and Joel have packed up their family and leave as soon as I get home. Regina has had the presence of mind to video tape both of our houses. They offer me a place to stay in Ben Lomond; friends have 40 acres off the grid. I mentally note to throw my tent and sleeping bag in the car. I realize that I’ve never thought about where I would go.

I listen to voice mails hoping Tom has called back. I have to leave Cookie in the car—my dog Savannah (who’s so relieved I’m home) is trying to chase Cookie down the driveway. No message from Tom, lots of messages from others. One is from my sensible friends Lisa and Matt, who live just down in Felton. They’ve been with me through stress and chaos (Open Studios prep!). They’re just what I need. Matt works for a “first responder” in Boulder Creek (the folks who coordinated everyone on the ground in NYC 9/11 and other major disasters). I babble to Lisa and say “I need another adult brain here.” I can tell I’m not thinking clearly anymore. I know I have hours, if the fire ever gets to my house, but racing around at J’s and Tom’s has undone me.

J arrives after sweeping and hosing down her roof and shutting off her propane. She magically gets everything from my car into her car. I get my “go” box back. Cookie, who seems so calm, throws up in J’s car, which is a last straw. I’m definitely stuck with Cookie until Tom finds his way to my house (wow, I hope he remembers where I live…why didn’t I get his cell number??). My friend Matt, who looks very much like Edgar Winter, arrives wearing a company shirt that says “Relax. I do this all the time.”

And he is the guy you want to have there. He remains in calm motion, periodically calling out “Where are you now?” to track me through the house, and asking me useful questions like “did you remember your cell phone charger?” He puts Cookie in his car. I clean up dog puke while J thinks of sensible things like shutting off propane and closing windows.

Tom and his wife arrive. The road to their house is closed now, they haven’t been able to get anything out of the house. Cookie is their “baby”. They both hug me. His wife softly and sadly says, “We have a cat.” We all look at each other. Maybe having the house sealed up like a drum will turn out to be a good thing.

By 7:30pm, Matt and I are leaving Bonny Doon with my odd assortment of things and both dogs: boxes of records and receipts so you can prove you’re you and prove what you had to insurance company; packing me and the dogs for a week or more away from home; packing up all the files and books I need to keep up with my work week; packing for next week’s business travel in case I can’t get back; oh yeah, and packing up things that would be gross to come home to if the power goes out, like 100# of frozen dog meat. All very practical. At the last minute I grab some pictures and favorite clothes. I accept Matt and Lisa’s offer to stay with them. We have baby gates and a plan for how we’ll segregate cats and dogs.

The next two days are a blur of trying to keep up with work, getting my dogs settled in, contacting a few people here and there as I have time, trying to keep up with fire new myself. I haven’t heard from J and wonder if her house is still standing. She built it herself and put everything she had into it.

Thursday night I get a call from J. I’m so drained that I’ve stopped answering the phone, but I see it’s her and rally. I open with “Hey—where are you?? Are you ok? Where are you?” I hear the sound of her munching on something. “I’m fine. I’m at your house.” 

?? “You’re at my house? How is my house? Why are you at my house and I’m not? And what are you eating?”

For any of you that know J, she’s one-of-a-kind, complete character. Her response is completely in keeping with her character: “I’m eating a meatball sandwich. I was trying to think of where I could stay [she rattles off a list of equally unattractive couch and camping possibilities], and then I thought of a house with a hot tub, big screen tv, and soft bed that was sitting empty. So I’m here at your house.”

I’m laughing as she carries on in her matter of fact, slightly playful tone of voice, “Yeah, and I picked up a tv news crew earlier tonight from a Spanish language station in Salinas and offered to be their tour guide. Got myself into the fire zone and checked it all out. Gave them a tour of my house too. I’m going to be on tv with subtitles tonight, ‘yes, and here is the house I built…’  It’s still standing. The fire is moving down the mountain towards the ocean. Your house is fine!”

I have another sleepless night at Matt and Lisa’s, listening to their 14 year old dog bark all night. She’s in a lot of pain. Her routine has been disrupted. She and Savannah have been very civil to each other, but it’s all a bit much for her. I think of J relaxing in my hot tub.

I call her up in the morning to see how the night went and get her ground level assessment of whether it’s safe to come home yet. I seem to no longer be on the  mandatory evacuation lists and the fire is clearly moving away from my house. The winds, so strong on Tuesday night and for weeks prior, have been blessedly calm. I’m really ready to be home.

“Hey, how is it up there this morning?” I ask J.

“Oh, it’s great! I just had breakfast with the fire crews.”

??

“Yeah, I popped in, had a big cup of tea, eggs with chicken fried steaks and gravy.” 

Only in J’s world. I’m laughing again.

“Yeah, I chatted up the fire crews. They’re rolling up hoses and “mopping up.” They have the fire “laying down”, which I learned means it’s still burning on the ground but not “crowning” or leaping from tree to tree any more. They’re sure they’ll have it contained by sometime Saturday. You’re totally safe to come home. All the roads are open now.”

That J. Clever. Useful. One of a kind. So hours before all this information hits the news, I’m packed up, heading home, and the first to call the propane company to come hook us back up so we can cook and take hot showers.

I take in the scene as I drive back into Bonny Doon. The little private airport just down the road from my house is the main base camp for fire crews. There’s hundreds of people, trucks, tents, outhouses, and food fans set up in organized fashion. It’s a pretty amazing sight.

Having left my house willing to lose everything and grateful for time to get out with what was most important, I get choked up driving up the driveway. It’s all still there, looking better than ever.

I unpack my life from the car, get my dogs Bucky and Savannah settled in. Housemates return home and we cook dinner together. Everyone is weary.

But I’m restless. It feels unsettling and vacant to have been gone, to have no direct contact with what’s been going on. I can hear the planes and helicopters, there’s still a massive diffuse smoke cloud overhead, fine ash falling in the air. My friends Nancy and Ilana, whose house is on the border of the Bonny Doon Eco Preserve where the fire broke out, ignored the evacuation and stayed behind to defend their house. I heard they’ve been without power. I drive over to see if they need showers or dinner. I need to go see the remains of the fire.

Ilana is out on the porch and sees me as I walk up. She runs down their front path, “It’s so good to see you!” and bursts into tears as she hugs me. “We both still have our homes!”

Yes, this is what I needed.

They just got their power back on; Nancy is happily making dinner. Ilana takes me on the hike that they have been doing every day and every night for the past three days: up to the “lower” Moon Rocks, where we have a view of the whole fire area. It’s clear that it started exactly where people like to hang out and party, sweeping down across the mountainside and up over the next ridge. It smells like being in the middle of a massive campfire. I realize I've never thought about what a wild fire might smell like. Like a camp fire, of course.

Ilana has poison oak up in her sinuses from the smoke. She holds her shirt over her face. She tells me about being up there at night, watching tree tops burning all over the mountainside like little candles. She shows me where they looked down Wednesday night and suddenly realized the fire was only 30 feet away, climbing up the hill towards them.

We can see several houses down below that were spared. Fire crews are still down there dragging hoses around, but there’s no visible flames. The smoke is coming from an area behind the Moon Rocks, away from the ocean. Planes and helicopters are audible but not visible. The sun is setting and the smoke has a pastel glow to it. We run into three other people who have also come here to quietly sit and let it all sink in. It feels reverential somehow.

Martin Road and the Eco Preserve that runs along most of it are one of my favorite places on earth. It’s surprising to see that it’s not barren devastation. The trees are all still standing--brown and dead, but still standing. Ilana tells me the view from down on Martin road, where the ground level fire is more visible, is far more devastating.

I drive home from their house and see dozens of hand painted signs on cardboard and plywood leaned against fences and mailboxes. They all say “Thank you!” Some have balloons and ribbons. I realize that the little girl and her father I noticed sitting quietly at the end of their road on the way down to Nancy and Ilana’s were there to wave at all the fire trucks driving up the road to base camp at the end of another long day.

It’s good to be home.

Post script: As I post this blog, fire fighters have the Bonny Doon fire 65% contained. Roads are open. Not a single home has been lost. There is really no way a community can adequately express their gratitude to the thousands of fire fighters who show up, risk their lives, and spend every drop of energy they have fighting to save other people's homes, even if you all turn out to honor them.