What do you do?

You have five days before we think part of a massive fire complex will burn it's way across your property.  Your house is in really good shape and has a very good chance of surviving, if the fire comes this way.

What do you do?  You work like crazy doing anything and everything to make it even more ready to meet that fire, should it end up coming.

After three days of fire crews of 30 people working on your place and now, you have about three days before the fire will be here.

What do you do?  You start packing because now you know you have to leave.  You know you may come back and everything will be toasty outside and some things may be melted inside.  Or you may come back and have to rake through ashes.

So what do you take?  Me?  I'd probably grab the computers, musical instruments of value, a couple of photo albums (most of our stuff is digital), clothes and shoes for everyone for a few weeks, the things that money can't replace, and we would really, really want to keep, and can be taken with us easily... quilts made for each of the girls by their grandmother, a few things that belonged to my grandmother...

Really, I'd probably spend a lot of time taking really detailed pictures to document what we have so that should we lose it, we have as much as possible to work with for the insurance.

That's the magic word, isn't it.  Insurance.

So now, what if the house you are leaving is a house for which you haven't been able to find anyone who is willing to insure?  It's on 60 acres in the middle of national forest service land, surrounded by giant firs and pines, oaks and madrone.  It's built of logs and heated by wood fire.  No one wants to insure it.  So, after decades of paying home owner's insurance on houses that had almost no claims, you are without insurance for not only the house but all of your belongings as well, and here comes this fire.



What do you do?  Maybe you can't even think about what to take, because you built this house, forty years ago.  You built it.  You didn't have it built.  You didn't design it and work with a contractor and do "a lot of the work" yourself.  You built it.  You cut down the trees, hauled them up a windy rocked road on a makeshift trailer, then stripped them and dried them and notched them.  You got lots of friends and family to help and you built this house.  You plumbed it, you put on the front porch, then took it off again and changed the design and put it on again.  Your first two children were born into this house.

You moved away, a long way away.  Thirty-five years ago, you moved away and only came to see that house for visits.  But now you have come home and it has been a glorious year of living in your house again.  Finally.  You've done so much to make it even more wonderful, always working on it, amazed that it has lasted forty years.  Watching your grandchildren grow to love your house.  That house that you built.

Now you have to leave.  You have to leave your woods, your road, your trails.  You have to leave your house and go sit and wait.

By the time my parents have the chance to read this, I imagine they will be sitting and waiting.  I don't know what that wait will be like.  I don't know what it is like right now to be trying to figure out what to pack.  I only know what it is like to be sitting hundreds of miles away, waiting for news.  The population of the fire camp dwarfs the population of the nearest town and huge surrounding area.  All those extra cell phones combined with the thick smoke and who knows what else is making normally dicey communication practically impossible.  News of new fire crews.  News of how they are going to get their vehicles out.  News of decisions about where to go.  News of timing.  News that they are safely sitting somewhere waiting.  News that they managed to say goodbye.