The Mountains are Burning: My Fire Diary
by Jake Orlowitz
Saturday night the lighting came, thousands of bright white flashes in the sky. People said it was the most beautiful storm they’d ever seen. Hundreds of fires sparked across the landscape. The fires connected forming what they call a Complex.
They cut the power to our neighborhood in 95 degree heat. We sat around a pool telling ghost stories and drinking ice water from our cooler in large orange mugs we’d gotten from the hospital when they were worried my wife would hemorrhage before the baby was born.
Tuesday afternoon we came back from cool evening beach air to an impenetrable gray fog. We walked inside our house, shut every door and window. There was a dark cloud and we were in its center. My brain starting shouting, “When you’re surrounded by air you can’t breathe, shouldn’t you leave?” I fell asleep in a hot, powerless, sealed up room enveloped by plumes from nearby fires. My wife woke me up at 1am. We’d gotten the call. It was time to go.
I’m SAFE in the CZU Lightning Complex California forest fires. We evacuated Wednesday morning at 2am from the Santa Cruz Mountains (from our neighborhood in Bonny Doon). We went downtown to the east side to stay with my wife’s stepdad.
My cats are safe. Baby is happy. Had time to pack up essentials. Monitoring…
