fires

San Diego is surrounded by wildfires today. The smoke and ash in the air, and the still quality in the street oddly and immediately evoke memories of four years ago this week, when the Cedar Fire raged through the county.

It feels strange to have been up in Julian all weekend, working at rebuilding our family house there, only to come down the mountain to relive the crisis of an overwhelming wildfire.

Not again.

This time, though, the fire spread into the city during the daytime--and having been through this as a city four years ago, everyone is less surprised by the power of the fire. So, we watch, riveted to the news as this fire causes evacuations of more and more communities. And burns more and more houses.

We're not close to the fire's imagined path (and neither is the half-built house in Julian), so the danger feels less personal, but the heaviness of fears seems to match the heaviness of the smoky air.

So, we pray, and share food, and take walkers from the church closet to the evacuation site and the stadium.