Burned into the memory forever

GEOFF WEST

Sensory overload. That’s what I’ve been experiencing for the past 10

days. As an avid channel hopper and news junkie, I should have been

having a great old time. Almost every channel was providing

wall-to-wall coverage of the horrendous fires, which have affected

every Southern California county except ours.

The coverage has been mesmerizing, as I watched each news outlet

jump from fire to fire with their coverage -- each attempting to give

us more information that we can possibly use. I should have been

euphoric, but I wasn’t. It’s been like sitting on the front porch of

Hades, watching everything around you burn. I planned my day around

the television and radio coverage and skipped from channel to

channel, hoping to see something new. I hoped to see and hear tales

of success, but most of what I saw was just the opposite.

I watched Channel 4’s Chuck Henry as he tearfully recounted the

story of how he and his cameraman were almost killed when they

delayed too long leaving a danger area. All his smugness I had

observed earlier when he sparred with law enforcement officers as

they told him to cut off his broadcast and leave another danger zone

was long gone. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to change

your attitude. They lost their news van, which was reduced to a

smoldering hulk. I then watched Channel 2’s Rick Chambers give us his

version of the event, which he caught on tape. The scenario was

different, but the result was the same -- one incinerated news van

and a couple very frightened news people.

I watched as a friend’s home in Stevenson Ranch was threatened

Tuesday evening. It survived the night, only to be threatened once

again the next morning by shifting winds. This double close call

ended well, though, as heroic firefighters saved the day.

I watched brave firefighters along Route 18, near Lake Arrowhead,

all day Tuesday using strategically placed backfires to head off the

flames. The Santa Ana winds helped them by forcing the fire back on

itself. Unfortunately, Wednesday morning, the winds shifted, bringing

cooler onshore winds. These should have helped all the firefighters,

but it was disastrous for the Arrowhead crews.

Late in the week, many more homes in the area were lost, but

Arrowhead Village, Running Springs and Big Bear appear to have been

spared -- for the moment. So broad is the reach of these fires that

the city of Hesperia, an early site of evacuation centers, is now

being threatened.

I watched the coverage of the San Diego fires -- the worst in this

state’s history -- and was very saddened to hear of the demise of a

firefighter as he and his crew tried to defend Julian.

Throughout all of this I’ve learned some new definitions for a few

old, familiar words. The nearly 12,000 fire fighters struggling to

defend lives and property, working around the clock with virtually no

sleep for days at a time, have re-defined bravery. There is no way

one can overstate the contribution these men and women make to our

civilization and no adequate way to say thank you.

I also learned a new definition of stupidity. That word applies,

in spades, to those misguided fools who chose to refuse to leave

their houses when ordered to evacuate. Tragically, some of these

people lost their lives in the most horrible of ways. Others have,

through their stubbornness, caused firefighters to shift their focus

from fighting the fires around them to trying to protect these

foolhardy individuals.

As I watched this coverage, I found myself feeling the full range

of emotions. I have friends with homes in several of the threatened

locations and feel tremendous sadness for them and their potential

loss. I, of course, feel sadness for the lives which have been lost

-- 20 as I type this -- and for the families left behind. I also feel

tremendous anger at those individuals who purportedly started at

least a couple of these fires, and hope that they will be identified

and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Burning at the stake

seems appropriate. A similar fate would be in order for the hunter

who started the deadly Cedar fire in San Diego when he lighted a

signal fire because he was lost.

The numbers which make up the nomenclature of these events have

long left the realm of understanding.

How does one come to grips with the fact that we are measuring the

damage not in acres, but in the hundreds of square miles?

How do we comprehend that an area greater in size than the state

of Rhode Island has been reduced to ash and smoldering tree stumps?

How can we possibly grasp the impact of more than 100,000 people

forced from their homes, and the fact that more than 2,100 homes have

already been destroyed?

How will our new governor cope with the damage that is already

being tallied in the billions of dollars -- with no end in sight?

How do we begin to understand the scope of the damage when, as was

reported on one media outlet, there is -- short of divine

intervention -- a good chance that the San Diego fires might burn

uninterrupted to the Arizona border?

How do you explain to the children that much of this devastation

was caused intentionally by men apparently looking for a thrill?

How do we contemplate the fact that those children will be

grandparents before they have a chance to know the beauty of the

pine-covered mountains around Arrowhead, Big Bear and Julian?

When we think of the loss from these fires we think in terms of

human loss -- lives and property. In a community that rallies to

protect a part-time resident burrowing owl in Fairview Park, how do

we contemplate the loss of wildlife and habitat in over 1,000 square

miles of fire area? What lessons can we draw from this tragedy? One

might be that, despite the bravery and skill shown by the

firefighters and the remarkable technology and equipment available to

them, a simple shift in the wind can quickly undo all their efforts.

Mother Nature works in strange ways.

Another might be that, even though some of the fires were caused

by the stupidity and maliciousness of a few people, this kind of

tragedy has once again shown us the true character of the people of

this region.

Story after story has emerged about neighbors helping neighbors,

bravery in the face of unbelievable peril and the generosity of

strangers. These are the memories we should retain from the last two

weeks of October 2003.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Geoff West is a Costa Mesa resident.