My Family Escaped the Woolsey Fire. It Was the Third Disaster We Fled in a Year.
For hours we sat in traffic, wondering how this could be happening again
By Grant Denham
Last Friday morning, my wife and I woke up around 6:30 a.m., as usual — our 3-year-old son, Jakey, was up. The afternoon before, I’d seen smoke on my drive home from Santa Barbara, but didn’t think much of it. Overnight a few friends had texted to check in, asking if we were okay. We turned on the TV to check on the fire’s progress on the local news. Within an hour, a mandatory evacuation had been announced.
Our neighbor across the street told us that he and his wife were staying behind: They had a commercial fire hose, and he’s a volunteer firefighter with some experience taming brush fires. If it weren’t for the safety of my family, I would have been tempted to stay, too. But our house is in a little valley, surrounded by hills and mountains covered in dried grass — plenty of fuel, in other words. The fire would come down on both sides and be nearly impossible to stop. With the Santa Ana winds so strong this year, the whole neighborhood could go up.
We packed our passports, birth certificates and computers, and as much clothes and diapers for our son as would fit in our car. We also grabbed one…
