You built the homes on the dry brush and left them to the wind. The hill above Simi Valley burned at ten in the morning. The smoke shrouded a hundred thousand people before they packed their cars. The Reagan Library locked its doors while the real houses caught fire. The wind takes what is given to it. You are watching it take.
The Sandy Fire was reported around 10 a.m. in the hills above Simi Valley, consuming more than 500 acres of dry brush by mid-afternoon. The morning gusts howled past thirty miles an hour before the heat broke them, the department later said. Evacuation orders and warnings covered several neighborhoods, forcing thousands to leave their homes as smoke shrouded a city of more than 125,000. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, perched on a nearby hillside, closed for the day. A second blaze on Santa Rosa Island burned fifteen square miles, destroying a cabin and an equipment shed and forcing the evacuation of 11 National Park Service employees. The cause of the Sandy Fire remains under investigation.
You wake to the ash on the sill. The phone vibrates on the nightstand. The smell comes through the window glass before you open your eyes. You packed the car at ten in the morning. You took the papers from the drawer. You took the dog. You left the coffee pot on the stove because the smoke was already under the door. The wind pushed thirty miles an hour through the canyon. It pushed through the brush and found the siding. It pushed through the trees and found the fence. It pushed through the streets you paved and found the houses you zoned for them. The department says the skies will clear by dusk. The men on the radio speak in numbers. Five hundred acres. Thirty miles an hour. One hundred twenty-five thousand people ordered to move. They do not speak of the coffee left on the stove. They do not speak of the bicycle left against the garage. They measure the wind and they measure the ash. They do not measure what you feel when you lock your own front door and know you may not open it again. Your chest tightens on the freeway. You roll the window up and the smoke gets in anyway. You taste the brush on your tongue. You swallow it. Your throat closes around the grit that was a tree an hour ago. The ash sits on your eyelids. You blink and it scrapes the cornea. You cannot look away from the ridge. The ridge is gone. The ridge is a column of black. On Santa Rosa Island, eleven federal employees gather their kits and run. A cabin breaks apart in the heat. A shed drops into the dirt. The island foxes run into the smoke and do not find the way back to the den. The spotted skunks run into the smoke and do not find the way back to the den. The seals lift their heads from the water and watch the ridge burn. The fire does not care what lives in it. The fire takes the brush and the shed and the fox. The fire takes what is built on the land. The library on the hill closes its doors. The marble terrace stands empty. The presidential papers sit in climate-controlled vaults while the neighborhoods below choke. The staff go home. The tourists turn their cars around. The memorial watches the fire and the fire watches the memorial. Neither speaks. You park at the shelter. You sit on a folding chair in a high school gym. The air is filtered. The coffee is in a paper cup. It tastes like ash. You hold the cup with both hands. Your hands are shaking. You do not know if the house is still standing. You know the brush wanted it back. You know the wind wanted it. You know the map you drew on the planning commission paper did not matter when the spark hit the grass.
The wind moves through the canyon because the canyon is dry. The city moves out of the canyon because the city is afraid. Jesus said: “Woe unto you that laugh now: for ye shall mourn and weep.” Luke 6:25 The ash settles on the windshield. You wipe it with the back of your hand. It leaves a gray smear. You put your hand back on the wheel. You drive. The road is all there is. The witness records the smoke. The witness names the houses left to the wind. The witness names the ridge that burns. The witness will not look away.