I wasn’t sure if news of the Thomas Fire had made it Brazil, so I called my son. We have a rule in our family. If you call with bad news, you always lead with reassurance.
“I’m fine. The house is fine, but we are close to the fire. Has it been on your news?”
I keep the details short, filling in only what is, not what could happen. He is relieved. He knows about fires. Six-thousand miles separate us, but for this moment we return to 1991. Our conversation bounces back and forth between our separate memories of the Oakland Firestorm.
Craig is again eight years old, helping to pack the car so we can evacuate to a safer place than where I am right now. I appreciate the distraction and shared memories of survival. The story is part of our family lore and oddly reassuring as I face hour-to-hour uncertainty.
“I told you guys to pack, and all you wanted to bring was your stuffed animals.”
“We thought they were alive,” he remembers.
I recall that hot day in October when the wrong-way wind that had morphed quickly from a brush fire to a deadly event, incinerating homes and killing those trapped in its path. Leaping a freeway, it burned a soccer field where his older brother, Kurt, had played the day before. Then, it spread its orange fingers of through neighborhood after neighborhood.
The boys' father and I disagreed on the level of danger. He was sure the fire sweeping through the East Bay Hills was far enough away, having driven to a nearby crest to look. Being a surgeon, he was confident, as always. I knew the adage about his type – often wrong, never in doubt.
So the familiar story goes, he told me we could leave. He gave me the okay to pack the car. But he didn’t help, because perhaps he figured that would deter me. It didn’t. What did was the faulty starter on my Suburban. Another adage plays into the history – Murphy’s Law.
So there we were, the only ones left on our street or any street in the near vicinity. We now had one functioning car, an RX- 7. “Yes, we could evacuate,” my husband said, “but we had to leave the animals behind.”
We stayed. I spent a sleepless night, but our house was spared.
“Kurt’s here,” I say to Craig. His brother lives about an hour away. He’d come the evening before to be my post-anesthesia transportation.
“I had an endoscopy scheduled today. Needless-to-say, I didn’t have it.”
Kurt joins in the phone conversation and we tell Craig about the power outage the night before. “I’d smelled some smoke. I imagined a neighbor enjoying a cozy fire in their fireplace. I didn’t realize.”
The truth was, I was distracted. It was Christmas season, and I had packages to wrap, commissions to fulfill. The procedure my doctor had recommended wasn’t an emergency, and I resented having to do it.
“I didn’t even realize there was a fire. I woke up to a text from Mary Lou.”
In fact, my cousin in Connecticut was the first to alert me. “Are you okay?”
Okay? What fire? I had just awakened.
“My car or yours?” I said absentmindedly, as I opened the back door.
It was then that I saw a house aflame on the hill behind us.
Kurt pushed past me and let forth a few expletives. The area behind our house glowed in orange.
“Oh!” I said. “I can’t have this procedure today. But it said on the instructions that I can’t call to cancel. I guess we need to drive over to tell them.”
“I know, Craig. My thought process was insane,” I say apologetically, but I remember being strangely calm.
“Let’s take my car,” I suggested, “and the dogs.” I paused to consider the possibilities. “Just in case.”
We took the freeway. Kurt wasn’t happy with my driving. His anxiety had found a target.
“I’m the one whose house might be burning. Stop yelling at me.” I paused. “Or keep yelling if it makes you feel better.” I was beginning to see the absurdity of this trip.
Lights were out everywhere, except for the endoscopy place. Several frantic looking women in scrubs answered phones and took my message, though I wasn’t sure they got my name.
Back outside, Kurt demanded. “I’ll drive.”
That seemed like a fine idea. At that point I wondered about my own credibility. When arrived home, the morning light added perspective. The fire wasn’t in my backyard. Not yet. I tell my son in Brazil that I’ll call him if anything changes.
The fire remained 0% contained, and stayed at the top of the national obsession. The news riveted us for the next couple of days. I relived the details of twenty-six years before. What was it that people had lost back then?
People whom I hadn’t heard from in years called to see if I was safe. Heavy smoke hung in the air. Though the nearby visible hillside looked okay, Kurt and I remained on high alert. When local friends phoned warning me of fires popping up just blocks away. I called the emergency number.
“Four blocks,” the woman said. “Evacuate if you feel threatened. It’s not mandatory at this point. Leave if you feel threatened.”
For the first time my adrenaline kicked in
My son picked up on it, and replayed his dad’s role, only on foot. “I’m going to check and see how close they are.”
“I’m coming with you.” I followed him to the end of the block. The sky in the distance was a pinkish-orange.
“I don’t see any flames. Let’s check again in an hour or so.”
Back home, I began to pack. A half-day before, I had prioritized my dogs, my car, my purse, my son and a need not to inconvenience my doctor. Now, I had some time before the wind changed and blew the fire back our way. What was important?
Tax stuff. Some clothes. My computers.
“Mom, where are the photos?”
I directed my son to the area where the albums were. Funny. Why hadn’t I thought to put them in bins? I made a mental note to do that for next time, if there was a next time. Of course there would be. This was California.
I grabbed some photos off the walls – my grammar school class composite from Saint Francis School. We wore mortarboards. I snatched up the one that hung under it – my mother’s 1930s class from the same school, everyone dressed in Sunday best.
“Which paintings, Mom?” Kurt asked as he grabbed some hand-painted mugs with images of dogs from his childhood, and two scruffy teddy bears from my childhood. One I had won at a carnival at the Knights of Columbus, next to my grandmother’s house. A wheel of fortune turn, and I had felt like the luckiest four-year old in the world. I knew my panda wasn’t alive, but the memories were.
“We should pack the cars,” I suggested.
"Let’s wait,” my son said.
We did, and soon the color faded. The small fires from earlier had been extinguished. That night, we took turns waking up every hour and checking our nearly deserted neighborhood. By the morning the smoke and ash lingered. The fire had moved north and east, burning forests and continuing to threaten homes. We watched the news, realizing that this Thomas Fire was setting records, but our personal sense of threat lessened as each hour passed.
That evening, nearly forty-eight hours into it, I sent Kurt home. We never had packed the car, though boxes and paintings remained ready. A week-and-a-half later, as I slowly replaced belongings to their original spots, I realized I’d forgotten my passport, my certification papers for nursing units I’d earned and my yearbooks. At the bottom of my suitcase though, I discovered a photo I didn’t remembered packing – a beloved dog.
Twenty-six years had passed since the Oakland Firestorm, and I wondered why I was strangely okay with the decision to wait, to not evacuate. What was the difference? I felt as if I should contact my ex. I should tell him that I could see now that he’d been thinking more clearly than I, that the fire wasn’t going to make it across two canyons. I could explain that back in those days my mama instincts knew only one priority, and his judgment could not override it. Back then, I knew we could rebuild. I could do more artwork, write more stories, but our children needed to be safe.
Replaying the feelings, I knew that my priorities were in place. Except for my initial let’s-not-inconvenience-the-doctor-craziness, the rest was – my dogs, my son. Nothing else was irreplaceable.
Still, I’ve packed my photo albums and made a list of what I would bring the next time. As for the stuffed animals – my teddy bears are back in place, as is my sense of clarity.
Mary-Jo Murphy
“I’m fine. The house is fine, but we are close to the fire. Has it been on your news?”
I keep the details short, filling in only what is, not what could happen. He is relieved. He knows about fires. Six-thousand miles separate us, but for this moment we return to 1991. Our conversation bounces back and forth between our separate memories of the Oakland Firestorm.
Craig is again eight years old, helping to pack the car so we can evacuate to a safer place than where I am right now. I appreciate the distraction and shared memories of survival. The story is part of our family lore and oddly reassuring as I face hour-to-hour uncertainty.
“I told you guys to pack, and all you wanted to bring was your stuffed animals.”
“We thought they were alive,” he remembers.
I recall that hot day in October when the wrong-way wind that had morphed quickly from a brush fire to a deadly event, incinerating homes and killing those trapped in its path. Leaping a freeway, it burned a soccer field where his older brother, Kurt, had played the day before. Then, it spread its orange fingers of through neighborhood after neighborhood.
The boys' father and I disagreed on the level of danger. He was sure the fire sweeping through the East Bay Hills was far enough away, having driven to a nearby crest to look. Being a surgeon, he was confident, as always. I knew the adage about his type – often wrong, never in doubt.
So the familiar story goes, he told me we could leave. He gave me the okay to pack the car. But he didn’t help, because perhaps he figured that would deter me. It didn’t. What did was the faulty starter on my Suburban. Another adage plays into the history – Murphy’s Law.
So there we were, the only ones left on our street or any street in the near vicinity. We now had one functioning car, an RX- 7. “Yes, we could evacuate,” my husband said, “but we had to leave the animals behind.”
We stayed. I spent a sleepless night, but our house was spared.
“Kurt’s here,” I say to Craig. His brother lives about an hour away. He’d come the evening before to be my post-anesthesia transportation.
“I had an endoscopy scheduled today. Needless-to-say, I didn’t have it.”
Kurt joins in the phone conversation and we tell Craig about the power outage the night before. “I’d smelled some smoke. I imagined a neighbor enjoying a cozy fire in their fireplace. I didn’t realize.”
The truth was, I was distracted. It was Christmas season, and I had packages to wrap, commissions to fulfill. The procedure my doctor had recommended wasn’t an emergency, and I resented having to do it.
“I didn’t even realize there was a fire. I woke up to a text from Mary Lou.”
In fact, my cousin in Connecticut was the first to alert me. “Are you okay?”
Okay? What fire? I had just awakened.
“My car or yours?” I said absentmindedly, as I opened the back door.
It was then that I saw a house aflame on the hill behind us.
Kurt pushed past me and let forth a few expletives. The area behind our house glowed in orange.
“Oh!” I said. “I can’t have this procedure today. But it said on the instructions that I can’t call to cancel. I guess we need to drive over to tell them.”
“I know, Craig. My thought process was insane,” I say apologetically, but I remember being strangely calm.
“Let’s take my car,” I suggested, “and the dogs.” I paused to consider the possibilities. “Just in case.”
We took the freeway. Kurt wasn’t happy with my driving. His anxiety had found a target.
“I’m the one whose house might be burning. Stop yelling at me.” I paused. “Or keep yelling if it makes you feel better.” I was beginning to see the absurdity of this trip.
Lights were out everywhere, except for the endoscopy place. Several frantic looking women in scrubs answered phones and took my message, though I wasn’t sure they got my name.
Back outside, Kurt demanded. “I’ll drive.”
That seemed like a fine idea. At that point I wondered about my own credibility. When arrived home, the morning light added perspective. The fire wasn’t in my backyard. Not yet. I tell my son in Brazil that I’ll call him if anything changes.
The fire remained 0% contained, and stayed at the top of the national obsession. The news riveted us for the next couple of days. I relived the details of twenty-six years before. What was it that people had lost back then?
People whom I hadn’t heard from in years called to see if I was safe. Heavy smoke hung in the air. Though the nearby visible hillside looked okay, Kurt and I remained on high alert. When local friends phoned warning me of fires popping up just blocks away. I called the emergency number.
“Four blocks,” the woman said. “Evacuate if you feel threatened. It’s not mandatory at this point. Leave if you feel threatened.”
For the first time my adrenaline kicked in
My son picked up on it, and replayed his dad’s role, only on foot. “I’m going to check and see how close they are.”
“I’m coming with you.” I followed him to the end of the block. The sky in the distance was a pinkish-orange.
“I don’t see any flames. Let’s check again in an hour or so.”
Back home, I began to pack. A half-day before, I had prioritized my dogs, my car, my purse, my son and a need not to inconvenience my doctor. Now, I had some time before the wind changed and blew the fire back our way. What was important?
Tax stuff. Some clothes. My computers.
“Mom, where are the photos?”
I directed my son to the area where the albums were. Funny. Why hadn’t I thought to put them in bins? I made a mental note to do that for next time, if there was a next time. Of course there would be. This was California.
I grabbed some photos off the walls – my grammar school class composite from Saint Francis School. We wore mortarboards. I snatched up the one that hung under it – my mother’s 1930s class from the same school, everyone dressed in Sunday best.
“Which paintings, Mom?” Kurt asked as he grabbed some hand-painted mugs with images of dogs from his childhood, and two scruffy teddy bears from my childhood. One I had won at a carnival at the Knights of Columbus, next to my grandmother’s house. A wheel of fortune turn, and I had felt like the luckiest four-year old in the world. I knew my panda wasn’t alive, but the memories were.
“We should pack the cars,” I suggested.
"Let’s wait,” my son said.
We did, and soon the color faded. The small fires from earlier had been extinguished. That night, we took turns waking up every hour and checking our nearly deserted neighborhood. By the morning the smoke and ash lingered. The fire had moved north and east, burning forests and continuing to threaten homes. We watched the news, realizing that this Thomas Fire was setting records, but our personal sense of threat lessened as each hour passed.
That evening, nearly forty-eight hours into it, I sent Kurt home. We never had packed the car, though boxes and paintings remained ready. A week-and-a-half later, as I slowly replaced belongings to their original spots, I realized I’d forgotten my passport, my certification papers for nursing units I’d earned and my yearbooks. At the bottom of my suitcase though, I discovered a photo I didn’t remembered packing – a beloved dog.
Twenty-six years had passed since the Oakland Firestorm, and I wondered why I was strangely okay with the decision to wait, to not evacuate. What was the difference? I felt as if I should contact my ex. I should tell him that I could see now that he’d been thinking more clearly than I, that the fire wasn’t going to make it across two canyons. I could explain that back in those days my mama instincts knew only one priority, and his judgment could not override it. Back then, I knew we could rebuild. I could do more artwork, write more stories, but our children needed to be safe.
Replaying the feelings, I knew that my priorities were in place. Except for my initial let’s-not-inconvenience-the-doctor-craziness, the rest was – my dogs, my son. Nothing else was irreplaceable.
Still, I’ve packed my photo albums and made a list of what I would bring the next time. As for the stuffed animals – my teddy bears are back in place, as is my sense of clarity.
Mary-Jo Murphy