When the evacuations come for you - #150

A fire story.

It was a Friday in November 2018 when we woke up at dawn, phones still plugged into walls without power. Our alarms were internal, and we were looking for plumes of smoke. On the west face of the mountain, we were audience to every sunrise, blind to every sunset. The day was clear. We knew the fire was burning somewhere, but without power, we had no way to check. No way to call out. So I put on my cycling kit, and I prepared to descend the canyon to the coast. I kissed Ben, and I told him I would call him when I was able to get news at the bottom of the canyon.

Topanga Canyon Boulevard was backed up with cars. It happens sometimes when there’s an accident on the Pacific Coast Highway where the road dumps out at a single stoplight, but drivers were being erratic and rude. People were turning around, pulling over, and I kept swerving to avoid their desperation. I heard a loud pop and knew I’d broken a spoke. I stopped on the narrow shoulder, opened my brakes to give the wobbling wheel more room, and kept riding. With every pedal turn, the rear tire still rubbed, forcing my effort. I would need to have it fixed in the city. When I reached the coast, the stoplight was out.

Something was wrong. There was tumult at the gas station, horns and voices, the aggression was palpable. I turned left in the shadow of a car going the same way over the freeway, and then saw them: the cars pulled over, cameras pointing back toward me. I stopped and unclipped, looking over my shoulder to see what was worth parking your car on your morning commute to see.

The smoke was unbelievable, like the shape of the earth had mirrored itself in the sky. The smell emerged from the notes of gasoline and exhaust to pronounce itself as nothing short of chaos. I pulled out my phone to call Ben, but there was no service. Power was out everywhere. There was no way to call him until I got further into the city. Malibu was on fire. We couldn’t see the plumes on our protected western face, but the fire was coming, and it was coming fast.

I passed hundreds of cars on my way into Santa Monica, traffic backed up for miles. All along the coast, phones pointed toward the horror behind me with jaws agape behind them.

As I got closer to Santa Monica, I started to check the news at stoplights, desperately looking for a fire map. Over 10,000 acres and spreading fast. Evacuation notices pouring in. All calls straight to voicemail. Winds becoming increasingly erratic, fire raging through a range deeply dehydrated by drought. I needed to go home. I needed to be there. But I thought I had time.

Without power, our WiFi calling didn’t work. There was no way to get a hold of him.

15,000 acres. I dropped my bike off at the shop, walked to the office, and continued to check the fire news. The Santa Anas blew hard and fast, pushing the fire through the Santa Monica Mountains. People kept leaving work, talking of back alleys, throughways to home. Text messages came in emojiless and short.

“Are you in Topanga?”
“Do you know if we’re in danger?”
“Have you guys left?”

I tried to call Ben again. Nothing. I tried to call our landlord, Barry, who also lived on the property. Nothing. And I kept trying to call as more people kept trying to call me. DMs from best friends. Slacks from coworkers. Emails from parents. And a text from a neighbor:

We can’t go home. Do you think Ben could get Trumpet from our house? I think the bedroom window is unlocked.

My phone rang. I was already holding it.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Helen’s Santa Monica, your bike is ready.”

It was time to go home. I told work, I’m sorry, but I need to go, it’s fastest by bike anyway, yes I’ll let you know but it should be fine, just want to be sure. I walked at a clip to the shop, but news reached me faster than I could reach home: mandatory evacuation of Topanga, all zones, immediately.

The canyon is broken into 9 zones. There are 3 primary outlets: one that goes to the valley, one to the coast, one deeper into the mountains. All zones needed to get out, splitting between the valley and coast exits. We’d seen a few evacuations, but this was our first time seeing mandatory, for everyone. No recommended, no voluntary — mandatory. Leave now.

I tried to call Ben — straight to voicemail. I got to the shop, and the fire was on the TVs.

“Miss?”
“Sorry, I’m here for my bike,” I said, staring at the news.
“Last name?”

I looked back at the woman.

“Sorry, what?”

Red flames, red news banners, red retardant falling from the sky.

“Your last name. For the bike.”

...Woolsey Fire grows to 20,000 acres...

“Ma’am? Your bike?”

I couldn’t go home, Ben couldn’t get the news, and I couldn’t stop apologizing for being lost in the smoke. The fire was growing and I stood wide-eyed in the slow commotion of the bike shop. And then he called.

“Hel—”
“Benny! Benny, are you evacuating?”
“What? — Hi Kelton!”
“Is that Barry?” I could hear him jovially yelling in the background. Barry, despite being our landlord, had over time become more like an adopted 70-something-year-old gremlin, full of quirks and delights and landmines. We loved him.
“Yeah, we’re just hanging out,” Ben said with an amount of leisure I didn’t even possess on vacation. “Trying to find where in the house has reception. Power’s still out.”
“It’s mandatory evacuation.”
“Really?”
“Yes, the whole canyon, it’s mandatory. Our zones go out through the coast, zones 1-6 to the valley.”
“We can’t even see any smoke. Is the fire close?”
“They’re worried about a wind shift.”

A pause.

“Ben?”
“Sorry, moved from my reception spot. OK, well, I’ll get our stuff together, is there anything you’d like me to pack?”
“I actually need you to go get Trumpet from the neighbors’ house. They can’t get home.”
“The cat?”
“Yes, can you get their cat?”
“I’ll try. I’ll pack up all the animals and our stuff and call you when I’m out of the canyon.”

A long time ago, I was prepared for this. When I moved to the West, I knew forest fires well. Because of my parents, a smokejumper and a backcountry ranger, I knew all disasters well. I knew all about go-bags and tennis shoes at your desk and extra supplies in your car. I grew up with handguns in center consoles and spare keys hidden in wheel wells, with gas tanks always full and cash never low. I grew up checking exits and the wind. I was prepared.

But I wasn’t there. And it made me mad. God, it made me mad. I could see myself in my house, my cabin, my stretch of cliff and dirt and wood, and I could see myself moving through it with the efficiency and grace of deep responsibility and care, knowing so completely in my heart the list of what mattered and what didn’t, and playing the perfect game of Tetris in my truck with all the perfect pieces of my life. But I wasn’t there and it wasn’t my call.

Four hours and 15,000 acres later, Ben pulled up to my office in my truck. In it there were two animals that belonged to us, one animal that belonged to someone else, the passports and wedding certificate, the engagement ring I never wore, the emergency litter box I had bought months ago, our bikes, and a duffel bag of mismatched clothes.

From the city, I could see he had time, but from where he was, all he could see was that I had called 15 times and he needed to break into the neighbors’ house to save their cat. He packed the important stuff. And for the rest, I had a detailed video of every single item in the house. I was told it would help with the insurance claim should it ever burn, because if we could see it, we could claim it. Every $12 shampoo bottle, every $5 bag of pasta, every $4 jar of spice, everything. So every few months, I took a new video. If the home burned, and our renter’s insurance didn’t cover what we needed, we could always turn to the Internet.

Seven days later, we were able to go home. Topanga had been spared. Malibu had not.

Now, that fire is known as the Woolsey Fire. It burned nearly 100,000 acres, destroyed over 1600 buildings, and prompted the evacuation of more than 295,000 people. The same day, the Camp Fire would ignite as well, killing 90 people.

That night, looking at that strange cabin I called my home, I catalogued the things we wouldn’t have been able to save. A painting I’d done. A blanket I never unfolded on the back of the couch. A pile of dismembered stuffed animals in the dog’s bin. Three homemade cookbooks. The Topanga Survival Guide sitting on the shelf. All the things that would have been gone forever, forgotten for years, etching themselves into a picture of what I would always remember as the home I didn’t want to lose.

For now, Sunday morning on January 12, 2025, that rickety old cabin still stands. The line is holding, and after 50 years of piecing them together, Barry’s hodgepodge of dwellings still gaze out over the Santa Monica Mountains.

But Barry’s gaze has changed.

A few years ago, when we lived in the Tree House and Barry lived in the Spider Box, he was preparing to fly across the country to see the Celtics in a pivotal game. Barry sees the Celtics any chance he gets, and because his daughter is a flight attendant, he sees them a lot. But this particular game was being held at a stadium that did not allow paper tickets. You had to scan your ticket on a cell phone. Or as Barry calls them, walk-around phones.

Barry did not have a walk-around phone. He also wasn’t going to miss the game. So one afternoon I spent two hours teaching Barry how to work the used cell phone he’d bought that was still getting texts meant for its previous owner who, for reasons I’ll let you guess, did not want to be associated with the phone anymore. Barry went to the game with his shiny new-to-him phone, and then upon return, never charged it again.

Barry also, with all his flying about, had a special parking spot near LAX that he wouldn’t fully reveal to us or to anyone. It was a space you could park for weeks without ever paying, without ever getting towed. But there was the chance someone would steal the car. So he filled it with trash. He picked me up from the airport once, and the stench gagged me.

“Barry, what is that?”

“Oh I don’t know, this that or the other, a little smell bother you? I thought you were tougher than that. Maybe you should get one of those fancy limos home. Hold on, let me hail a taxi—TAXI!”

“Barry, something is rotting.”

And sure enough, there was a box of rotten pineapples in the trunk.

“Well they were just gonna throw ‘em away!” He pantomimed, incredulous.

Barry buys salmon exclusively from the sale bin at Ralph’s. All three of the tenuously nailed together structures on his Topanga property had rats, mold, and leaks. He carries around a stack of two-dollar bills. He sleeps on a confoundingly high pile of old blankets so his bed is tall enough for his 6’5” frame, and he had his neighbor (me) show him how to use a computer absolutely caked with grim so he could listen to music.

This is not a man with social media.

I mention this because three months ago, Barry sold that Topanga place. His heart ached to leave Topanga, but his heart also ached without medication. He needed to be closer to medical care, so he sold his personal paradise and moved into a trailer home on the Pacific Coast Highway. He moved all the photos of him playing in bands with the greats, photos of him with Aretha Franklin and James Brown. He moved all the paintings his daughter had done as a child. He moved the painting I did for him of the Topanga house featuring our dog Cooper, his favorite. He moved the collection of t-shirts from concerts of long dead musicians, concerts he’d been to. He moved decades upon decades worth of records, cassettes, and CDs. He moved all of it into a trailer.

And then on Wednesday, that trailer burned to the ground.

So now, not only does he not have social media, he does not have a home. He also did not have insurance.

I was taking January off Instagram, but the on-the-ground reports of the fire pulled me back in. I wanted to see the first person stories of my friends in Santa Monica, Altadena, and Topanga. As the smoke clears, all I see on Instagram now is links to GoFundMes. I know five people so far whose homes have burned to the ground. Many of them are pillars of the cycling community I used to be a part of. Their internet donation funds are being shared by everyone I know because not only are these people loved, they’re loved on Instagram — a prerequisite of a GoFundMe getting funded.

For Barry to have a GoFundMe, I would be the one to to start it. What luck that he has someone who’s a professional writer with an Instagram following who also happens to love him. What luck that there’s someone in his network with enough internet nodes to potentially lift him up. What luck indeed, but if I did raise the funds for him on a website that has quickly become the backbone of American support, he would almost certainly say someone else needs it more.

And he’s likely right. Many people will find themselves with children and pets and no family for hundreds of miles. Many students who were living paycheck to paycheck will find their shared room gone. Many people who put everything into businesses run out of their homes will find their income stolen. Many people who were denied the fire insurance they desperately sought will find the clock ran out. Many house cleaners, gardeners, and caretakers will find their jobs gone up in smoke too. Many people who lived quiet, private lives will now be wondering how to be loud enough to be heard.

How do you market someone as a worthy cause? The bootstraps we have available in this country couldn’t pull up the boots on an American Doll. We are left with each other, and the capitalist greed of the tech giants that claim to harbor our connections.

The GoFundMes are simple: everything is gone, and we don’t know what to do. Whatever insurance pays for will be reaped by what they charge next year. The easiest path forward for every American is to acknowledge there is no safety net beyond the one you’ve built around yourself: a good picture, a good story, and a good platform to post it on. Please share.

But how do you build a story for someone whose entire story is in the past? What if their story is private? How do you sell someone who’s in danger if they’re sold out? What about someone who’s still working on their own redemption arc? How, in America, do you get someone to buy in when you have nothing to sell?

There is an oft-quoted, now-deleted post from X (Twitter) user @PerthshireMags regarding our ongoing climate disaster, “Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it.”

In the meantime, we’re left in an increasingly isolated society that demands you somehow build a good story and build a big community, because without both, you may not be able to rebuild at all.

---

---

Smokejumpers and the state of wildfire - #43

What's a home? - #41

---

Some Donations:
Pasadena Humane Society has taken in over 400 animals
Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation
California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund
And seen on Culture Study, This is About Humanity is matching funds up to $50,000 to support front/second line farmworkers, day laborers, essential workers and families impacted by fires in Los Angeles. Donate here.