"You should write about that fire!"
My answer: which one???
Several people have said this to me, but believe it or not, I have four personal fire stories. Still, I do know which fire they’re likely referencing. It’s a big one. (Put it this way: my husband and I made part of national, even international news.) Even beyond that news coverage, however, are other interesting (and I dare say, entertaining) details from our story that I’d like to share, so I’m going to save that fire story for a future post. Watch for it. 🔥
As a preamble . . . the three other fire stories
1️⃣ My mother’s house burned down in the Oakland hills fire of 1991.
To the ground. Nothing left. My mother had gone to purchase gardening supplies that morning and never returned: she was stopped by emergency workers en route home. All she had were the clothes on her back and her handbag.
My mother bought and moved into her townhouse after my father died in 1986, so her home also contained everything from our lives and years abroad. Gone was the tall Korean chest holding all (20+) of our photo albums; the many pieces of art, including cherished paintings made by each parent; the furnishings and items we’d gathered from all around the world; and . . . everything.
Having grown up internationally with one or two visitors, if that, to each country we lived (and zero visitors to India or Venezuela), our family albums, furnishings, and art were the only “proof” of our family’s experiences or existence in foreign countries. No one else had taken photos of us in those years. Now, all the ties to our family’s past were gone. Poof!
Talk about a huge lesson on impermanence.
As it was, my family had already learned a big lesson in that department, by virtue of moving all over the world, always leaving and landing in a new continent, without access to the countries or people we left behind. (This was long before cell phones or the internet.) Not to mention, my father’s sudden death at the age of fifty-four. Impermanence was a known part of our life experience. We understood the value of living as fully as possible in the present. As my father said, “now is all we have.”
How and where we’d lived and grown up was no longer in any way as showable. I have a few photos here and there (previously copied or saved, or taken as a teen), but our collective past overseas would mostly be left to share through our personal stories, including my mother’s memoir, Six Car Lengths Behind an Elephant, and the stories I share here on In This Life.
What/who did survive her house fire:
The Kyums! As an indoor/outdoor cat, we knew she could’ve gotten away, so my main objective was to look for her. I drove to all the Bay Area shelters holding rescued animals from the fire, making the rounds every day, sometimes twice a day. On day three, I found her with other new arrivals at one of the shelters. Amazingly, her fur wasn’t singed and she seemed physically okay. Did they know where she was found? They weren’t sure, but thought she was in a burned-out car. ✴️ The Kyum’s personality changed after that fire. She went from being an aloof and outdoor kitty, to an affectionate, indoor one. She lived on with my mother for twelve more years.
The Buddha. For her small garden, my mother had wanted a laughing Buddha statue made of stone. Simple. Basic. She’d searched, but the best one she found was painted in gold. As my brother and I searched the rubble, I couldn’t help but smile and cry as I spotted him, the gold sheen melted away; he had become the Buddha my mother always wanted. ✴️ This Buddha now sits in our front garden. He is a tribute to the constancy of change and to living as joyfully as possible in the present.
2️⃣ My brother-in-law’s house burned down in the Glass Fire of 2020.
Their house was in Angwin (Napa county) with beautiful views of Calistoga and the wine country below. This wasn’t their primary home, so it was not as catastrophic in that way, but a lot of labor and time was spent making it into the wonderful and inviting home that it was. We celebrated Christmases there, and spent many memorable weekends. Devastating, always, to see a beloved home reduced to ash and rubble.
3️⃣ Several months ago, in late July, my husband, Henri, and I spotted a fire deep in the Sierra National Forest.
We were headed for a backpacking trip, starting deep in the Sierra National Forest and hiking into Yosemite National Park to camp by an alpine lake for two nights. We drove twenty miles up a dirt road to our trailhead on the day before departure; far from people, far from cell service. We set up our tent, ate dinner, and took an early evening walk. That’s when we saw smoke emanating from the ridge beyond.
Could this be from a campfire? Not likely. Could people be in the vicinity and monitoring it? Hmmm, again, not likely. We watched it for about 30 minutes to see if anything changed. It didn’t.
No one else was likely to know about this fire, or this smoke. We had to take action.
We broke camp, folded up our tent, packed the car, and drove an hour to the nearest town to report it. It was 8:30 p.m. by the time we got into a small town. We were looking for an open place of business, a motel, anything, to notify someone or use their phone, when we drove by a small fire station. Perfect! The big rolling door was open, but no firetrucks. We called out and knocked on doors. Nobody there. We got in our car, about to leave, when the firetruck came. The driver leaned out the window and we told him why we were there. He told us to follow him into the firehouse, where he called Fresno County Fire Dispatch and put us on the line to provide details.
They didn’t have available resources to address this, we were told. All their resources were in use or needed against other wildfires; but they would check it as soon as they could. We provided my photo and Henri’s printed topo map to find the location.
By now it was after 9:00 p.m. We were very lucky to find one available motel room (falling apart and musty, as it was) about a mile from the fire station. The next morning, bright and early at 6:30 a.m., we called Fresno County Fire Dispatch to get a status report. They had given it a look and it was a spotfire, likely ignited by a lightning strike hitting a few trees several days back, their roots still smoldering. They’d keep an eye on it, they told us, but still had no resources to put it out.
Should we still go on our backpacking trip??
Henri asked the dispatch officer what she thought. She couldn’t say, but suggested it was probably better not to. And of course she would say that, it was the safest bet. Still, we’d prepared for our trek for over a month. We’d planned our meals, fine-tuned essential packing items, gone on training hikes with full packs, and selected hiking routes and destinations. We were finally out there with three free days ahead. Driving home would be depressing.
We opted to at least drive the one-hour back to our trailhead and see how things looked on the ridge. The smoke was exactly the same as the day before. We decided, okay, we know they have their eyes on it, let’s at least start hiking. We’ll turn around if there’s any sign of increased smoke, or fire, or if we deem it necessary for any reason.
We laced up our boots, put on our backpacks, and started the trek. We kept our eye on the smoke as we moved along, but quickly hiked beyond it. At 10:30 a.m., after a few miles of hiking, we heard a sound . . . what was it? We stopped . . . a helicopter! We looked at each other and quickly veered to find open granite and take a look. That’s where I took this video:
Assured that they were now addressing the spotfire, we continued on. We heard the helicopter circling back with newly filled buckets of water from a nearby lake, but pretty quickly, the sound dissipated as we gained distance.
We followed our planned route and found a fabulous camping spot right by the alpine lake that afternoon. Gorgeous, or what?
For two days and nights we explored the area. No fire. No smoke. No issues. We hiked up to other lakes during the days. Watched an osprey for hours in the evening. It was all wonderful.
On our return hike, days later, we again heard the sound of a helicopter a few miles out from our trailhead. As we got closer and could see the ridge again, we saw the same smoke and helicopter, still circling back and dumping buckets of water!
At home, the next day, I searched online for officially reported fire incidents in the Sierra National Forest. I found it, and it was still considered active. It took another two days before that incident was closed. Perhaps the winds had picked up, but that’s amazing, given days with repeated dumps of water. The two of us might have truly prevented a forest fire.
If you ever want to report smoke or a fire sighting in the forest, call 9-1-1. And if you don’t have cell service, hoof it or drive to the nearest place that does to report it.
And just think, these fire stories are a preamble for the bigger one. 😉
To come: 4️⃣ the story of a high Sierra rescue from the Creek Fire of 2020.
(A little foreshadowing c/o The Grateful Dead.)
✳️ Thoughts? Like? Have your own fire story? Please share! Scroll down to like or comment.
NEWS & UPDATES
✳️ Speak German? (Or use a translation app.) I was interviewed for the September issue of the reputable Austrian news magazine DATUM. The title of the feature: "What it's like . . . to find out that your father is a spy."
✳️ Very much enjoyed conversing with
for our “Spy Daughters” Arts & Culture event at Berkeley City Club on September 11. Audience members told us we should go on tour with this event, and we’d love to! I’ve also given talks and presentations about my mother’s memoir and her amazing life. I welcome inquiries for more speaking engagements. Subscribers to In This Life can contact me at johannamccloy@substack.com✳️ Are you familiar with Substack’s Notes? Notes are for sharing news items and other brief mentions with the wider Substack network. Peruse mine (link above), if you will. If you’re logged in, you can like/share or comment on those, too. 😊 Notes are on the main menu with Home, About, Podcast, and Archive.