The Sonoma County Firestorm Story
Foreward
The following is not a blog but a short story that I wrote only two months after the firestorm, wanting the details to be fresh in my mind and recorded as accurately as possible. Some of it is raw and choppy, but I left it that way on purpose in the hope of keeping it as true to life as I could. Please note that every time a text message is quoted, it is an actual text message that I just copied and pasted into this story exactly as it was written that night, with the timestamps included. I wanted this to be recorded much like a captain's log would be, though written in the style of a first-person point-of-view novel. However, the names of people involved and some minor details have been changed for the sake of privacy and protection.
Dedicated to the victims and survivors of the Sonoma County Fires.
Part One
“Hey- just wanting to check all is well with you guys? Kenwood is full of really bad smoke and apparently, there are a bunch of fires in Sonoma County, due to the wind. Dad called 911.”
On Sunday night, October 8th, 2017, at 11:43 p.m., I sent the above text to my friend Diana, who lived in Santa Rosa. It wasn’t unusual for the smell of smoke from a faraway fire to fill our yard, especially when it was extremely windy like it was that night.
Perhaps it was due to the haunting gusts of wind, or the flickering of the power, or the unusual warmth of the October evening air, but something in my blood was telling me this night was different.
Only a half-hour before, my family and I had finished an episode of 24, turned off the TV, and headed to our separate rooms. Though both grown adults, my brother and I were renting spaces from our parents in our childhood home because we both loved it there and because the price of rent elsewhere in Sonoma County is sky-high.
The power began flickering on and off a few times. Annoyed, I plugged in my iPad and iPhone, expecting a long, dark night ahead and wanting to make sure my electronics had some juice in them. Another gust rattled the house as I went to the sink to brush my teeth. The power went out, plunging our little property in forested Kenwood into pitch darkness. As I moved to unplug my phone from the now-useless outlet, the lights came back on. Knowing it was only a matter of time, what with the crazy, fierce winds, until the power fully went out and stayed out, I decided to forgo trying to charge my phone, taking it with me back into the bathroom so I could finish brushing my teeth.
I had just set the phone down on the sill when I caught a sudden and strong scent of smoke through the open window. My heart sped up a bit—it always did at the smell of a wildfire, even though I’d smelled many, many distant fires over the years. I grabbed my phone again, this time to text my dad. It was 11:15 p.m.
“Where are you?” my fingers typed.
“In my studio,” he texted back.
“Come outside. I smell fire.”
I stepped out the back door to meet him, feeling jittery at the intensity of the stench in the air. Having lived in the same sweet little home out in the densely wooded countryside my whole life, I’d always had a healthy concern about wildfires. As Dad walked toward me across the yard, the beams from his flashlight illuminated a strange thickness in the air.
”Do you smell it?” I asked.
”Yes,” he replied, after a moment. “Smells like old smoke to me.”
“Old smoke?” I repeated hopefully. But it didn’t smell like old smoke at all in my opinion. In fact, it seemed to be growing stronger by the minute.
Another gust of wind ripped through the yard. The lights in the house blinked valiantly for a moment or two, as if fighting to stay on, then vanished. Instantly, everything went black. Even the stars seemed uncommonly hazy. Dad began pacing around the yard, looking at the air with his flashlight and sniffing. I went inside to fetch a battery-operated lantern, set it on the desk in my room, then returned to the front porch, chilly from the wind and my nervousness in spite of the unusual warmth of the autumn night. I could tell Dad was looking something up on his phone, probably trying to research nearby fires. I pulled out my own phone to do the same, heading to the CalFire website. There was nothing at all listed in our area, which relieved me. But then what were we smelling?
My brother Ed joined us outside.
“We’ve been smelling smoke,” I uselessly informed him.
“Trust me, I’ve been smelling it,” he said.
Dad was on his phone. “I can’t get through to anyone,” he told us. “Tried calling the Kenwood Fire Department and 911. No one is answering.”
911 isn’t answering? my brain reeled. That couldn’t be right…
It had been a very long and tiring day. All I wanted to do was climb in bed and try to get some sleep; if I even could through the noise of the wind and the smell of smoke. However, feeling that sleep was a lost cause and probably irresponsible, I left dad and my brother to try to figure things out, and went to empty the trash bin from my bathroom. It needed taking out, and I needed something to do. The wind was picking up, so was the smell of smoke in the air. I replaced the empty bin, resignedly returned to the vigil on the deck, and took out my phone to text my friend Diana, concerned that the fire was maybe near her house. It was now 11:43 p.m.
“Yes we are watching it on the tv now,” she texted back. “Napa is crazy with fires, and there’s one on Mark West Springs Road. You guys are welcome to come here if you need to come!”
Though I appreciated her kind offer, I knew we’d never leave in the middle of the night like that, except in the direst of emergencies. I continued my search of the internet for more information.
“I got ahold of 911,” Dad interjected. “They are swamped and saying don’t call us unless you see actual flames.”
“Should we go drive and see what’s going on?” I asked, beginning to feel anxious. There were no sirens, no fire alarm sounding from the Kenwood Fire Department, no red glow in the sky—all was eerie and quiet except the ferocious winds and the constant smell of smoke. I hoped the absence of all these things was a good sign, but not knowing made everything feel worse. I searched Bing again and this time found a familiar name: inquiries about rumors of a fire on Lawndale Road. Lawndale was right here in Kenwood. My stomach twisted. It was probably just a rumor.
I went inside to check on my cats, peering around my dark room with the flashlight app on my phone, imagining how awful it would be to try and pack up precious belongings in the dark. But it would never get that bad, I told myself. Years ago, there had been a fire in the hills behind our house and a tanker plane had dropped its load on it within an hour, immediately diffusing it. No doubt a plane was on its way right now, if it was even needed.
The sound of slamming doors and a car ignition startled me from my reverie. I looked out the window to see our neighbor’s pickup taking off. I figured she was going for a drive to find out what was happening, like I wanted to do.
I went back to the bench on the deck, hoping to hear the sound of a plane, and unlocked my phone to text Diana again. Pieces of ash fell thick and fast onto the glow of the screen.
“There was something on Facebook about a fire on Lawndale,” I texted, my fingers brushing large flakes of ash off the keyboard as I typed. “I’m hoping it was wrong? Holy cow it’s sooooo smoky and covered in ash- gross.”
“Well truly - don’t gamble if you guys get a sense to leave,” Diana texted back. “We could always go to my folks’ house and leave ours for you guys.”
“Thank you, truly, but we can’t leave the kitties haha,” I answered.
“Well you can bring them of course.”
“Aw, thank you. I think we are good unless of course we ever had to evacuate- in which case, thank you, so much.”
A sudden, distant noise distracted me, echoing over the hills. I looked up at the black shape of my dad in the darkness.
“What was that?” I asked, though my squirming insides already knew.
“It sounded like an explosion,” he confirmed.
“Should we go for a drive to see what’s going on?” I asked again, hating every second of sitting around waiting, clueless as to what was happening.
More distant explosions rumbled in the passing moments.
“Did you see anything on the news about things exploding in Santa Rosa?” I texted Diana. “Like propane tanks? We’ve heard a couple distant explosions.”
“We haven’t heard anything,” she answered.
“What is that noise?” asked Ed suddenly, and I knew he wasn’t referring to the explosions. Then I heard it too: a strange new sound filled the air, a rushing, roaring sound, like the hum of a city in the distance.
“Probably just city sounds from Santa Rosa,” I answered flippantly, my head already too full of other concerns to bother with this new one, though I knew I’d never heard another sound ever like it before.
Another explosion boomed.
“Let’s go for a drive,” I repeated.
“I’m going to the top of the hill to see if I can see anything from there,” Dad said, taking off across the yard, with my brother close in tow. I hesitated, not wanting to climb through the tall grass when I was ready for bed. Instead, I headed inside to let Mom know I was going to go drive around. She was still in her bed, but awake, woken by the power going off. I told her what was happening. Just then, her iPhone lit up with a new message.
One of my favorite trees on our Kenwood property.
“Oh my,” breathed Mom, looking down at the text. “Claudia just texted that there is a huge firestorm on Pythian,” she said, referring to the neighbor I’d heard driving away a little while earlier.
“Pythian?” I repeated, my heart dropping—Pythian was a road off of Highway 12, just a few miles away.
“She said both Highway 12 and Lawndale Road are closed,” Mom continued.
I heard the front door open and hurried to meet my dad and brother as they came back inside. Even in the darkness, I could tell something was wrong.
“Claudia just called me,” Dad told me quickly. “She set her horses free and took off.”
“What?” I asked in shock. This news, more than anything else, suddenly made the situation real. Claudia would never let her horses go unless it was an absolute emergency.
“What did you see from the hill?” I inquired, nervous to know the answer.
“It’s all glowing red in the distance.”
The darkness seemed to be thickening as we stood in silence, each occupied with our own thoughts. Dad was on his phone again, so I decided to update Diana.
“So apparently there is a fire in Kenwood,” my fingers typed, a little shakily. “Claudia just called- she already took off.”
“Ok well the offer still stands. I already called my mom to let her know we may show up tonight:) She is so good with that,” Diana answered.
“Ok thank you- yeah apparently it’s bad. We are rethinking what to do. Now I’m a little scared.”
“Well you can come here.”
“Thank you so much. Please keep praying for it to stop.”
“Yes, praying.”
“I just got through to the Kenwood Fire Department,” Dad said suddenly, making me jump. “They said we should get out.”
There was the briefest moment as I blinked, taking this in, and then my head shifted into practical, emergency-responder mode.
“Should we start packing?” I questioned. “Dad? Are we leaving?”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess so,” he replied, his tone revealing his defeated realization that this was our only choice.
At these words, my brother sat down on the couch, looking shocked.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said stupidly, wanting to encourage him while trying to stay focused, trying to think of what to do first.
“You don’t know,” he retorted, peering up at me in the darkness, as if challenging me to contradict him. I wanted to, but couldn’t.
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I don’t.” But there wasn’t time to think about that now. Right now, we had to move. Fast.
I’d imagined this very scenario so many times it was shocking to realize that this time it was actually happening. My weird, first-responder nature was always planning for emergency situations, and for some strange reason, a fire was one of the top emergencies I’d plan for. Often I’d lay awake at night, picturing what items I would take with me, how I would do it, how quickly I could do it…
But now, staring around into the darkness of a house dimly lit with LED candles, heart beginning to thunder in adrenaline, I had to wrack my brain to remember what I’d rehearsed in my head so many times. There were only two things I could think of off the top of my head—our family home videos and the cats!
The world began to spin in a haze of adrenaline as I sprang into action. I rushed to my closet to find a cat-carrier, whipping out my phone as I did so. It was 12:40 a.m.
“Kenwood fire department told us to leave,” I texted Diana. “Can we come to you?”
“Yes!” she replied immediately.
“Jesus,” I texted, saying his name as a prayer.
“Yes, Jesus,” she agreed.
The next thirty minutes were something of a dark blur. Someone told Mom what was happening; it might have been me, but I don’t remember. Everyone was moving at record speed, flashlight apps waving dizzyingly in busy hands. Adrenaline was making my heart race and my body shake, but I wasn’t afraid or panicked—my head actually felt surprisingly clear, even in the unfolding chaos of trying to pack more and faster than I’d every packed in my life. My countless imagination rehearsals of this moment began paying off as I started recalling what I’d always imagined I’d do and what I’d take.
I yanked the cat-carrier and suitcase out the closet with one hand, the other clutching my phone so I could see. Some favorite clothes and shoes were tossed in the suitcase at random, but not a lot—after all, I didn’t want to be overreacting and pack too much if we would just be coming back in the morning. I put one pair of jeans back on the shelf.
Everyone was moving, but I didn’t know what any of them were doing. Someone climbed over me as I crouched beside my suitcase. Voices sounded like strange background noises. Drawers were opening and closing.
“Can someone get me the home videos?” I asked to the chaotic darkness and wavering flashlights, gesturing to a shelf, high in a closet.
Someone must have gotten them because two large shoeboxes full of tapes were suddenly on the bed. I scooped them up, fetched a box full of more family videos on DVD, then piled the lot in my suitcase next to the underwear I’d thankfully remembered to grab.
“I need another cat-carrier!” I called out, realizing we only had two and were one short. “We need a box or something. Someone get me a box!”
The little electric lantern on my desk flickered away resolutely as I shoved journals, computers, iPad, Apple Watch, favorite stuffed animals, and pieces of jewelry into backpacks. I opened my ring box and took out my Elven ring, but left behind the gold, opal, and ruby ring from my adopted Grandpa Lowell. I could have easily fit the entire ring box into my backpack, but I still didn’t want to overreact. And I didn’t want to have too much to unpack later—so, no, I wouldn’t bring any of my chargers.
I dragged a heavy storage box out from under my bed where I kept the pieces of artwork my dad had drawn me for my novel. The ones hanging on the wall I ripped down and crammed into the box, along with anything else that would fit. Balancing a hatbox full of old cards on top, I lifted both boxes and carried them out the backdoor.
The air was even thicker with smoke. The boxes were really too heavy for me to lift, but in that moment it didn’t cross my mind that I couldn’t do it. I thudded down the steps to the driveway in the pitch-dark, my legs shaking violently as adrenaline pumped through me. I hadn’t realized how badly I was shaking until then and was quite surprised by it.
I made several trips to the car, carrying tons at once to move along faster, ignoring both the weight of what I was lifting and the relentless trembling of my legs. Three more hatboxes full of old, sentimental items joined the others already in my car. There seemed to be a clock ticking loudly in my head. We had already wasted so much time.
A cardboard box big enough to fit a cat had miraculously appeared in my room—someone must have heard me yell for it.
“Quick, help me get Eva in the box!” I told Ed. My elderly cat was hunkering on the bed with an attitude that revealed she knew something was very wrong. I don’t have a clue how my brother and I managed it, but before I knew it, I was half-sitting on the box, forcing the lid to stay on while Eva made panicked attempts to escape, wrapping duck tape around and around, feeling my progress blindly with my fingers in the complete darkness. Once the whole roll of duct tape was used up, I let go of the lid.
“Eva is ready,” I told Ed. “Where are Zoë and Merlin?”
“They’re already in their carriers and in the Expedition.”
Thank God, I thought.
Legs shaking more with each passing minute, I got the yowling Eva to the SUV and set her next to the other cat-carriers, praying the duct tape would hold.
Now that the most important things had been loaded, there was only one other thing that I’d always imagined I’d grab in this situation.
I rushed to one of our storage units, where we kept all our photo albums. My flashlight app lit up the shelves lined with albums, and the drawers and drawers full of loose photos and negatives, the ones we hadn’t had time to properly scrapbook yet. I glanced around the room at the dark mounds that I knew were years of all our old childhood drawings and toys—Playmobil castles and dollhouse, Breyer horses, American Girl dolls, Faerie Glen figurines, and the hope chest my dad had made me, full of precious items I was saving forever.
Knowing there was no chance for any of those items, I turned back to the photos. Where should I start? How could I even begin to choose which precious album was the most important to save? Maybe I should run get everyone and have them help me grab all of the albums—we could just chuck them in the trunks of the cars. I reached up, pulled one down from the shelf, and ran my fingers over it, heart pounding.
Leave them. They’re gonna be fine. It’ll be ok.
The voice inside me was clear and I decided to trust it. Putting the album back on the shelf, I turned away, shut the door behind me, and ran across the smoke-filled yard. The very air seemed to be vibrating. A sudden urgency was making my stomach churn.
There was only one way out of our tiny country road, something I’d often thought about when I imagined this very scenario. If that one way out was blocked, the only option we would have would be to leave the cars and hike across the hills of the state park behind our property. And that horrible picture was suddenly screaming into reality in my head.
It was time to leave. I just knew it.
“We’ve got to go!” I shouted to the commotion of voices and movement that was my family loading up the three cars. I raced inside, looking around in the darkness for anything else I could see that should come—but I couldn’t see at all. I grabbed one old photo from the wall in my room just as my brother hurried past, carrying some of our collector’s swords. Copying him, I grabbed Hadhafang, my Lord of the Rings replica sword, and made for the backdoor.
The steadfast flicker of the lantern on my desk caught my attention. Out of habit, pointless though it was, I stopped to turn it off, plunging the room into total darkness.
My heart twinged. It was silly, dramatic, and sentimental, but I didn’t want to leave my house to face its fate in the darkness. I switched the candle back on and my room again filled with a cheery, warm glow. “Either I’ll turn it off when I come back,” I whispered to myself, “or at least my home won’t burn alone in the dark.”
Without looking back, I hurried out the door, locked it behind me, and then caught my breath in dread.
Since the last time I’d been outside, the night sky had turned a horrible orange. The air was full of dense smoke, ash was falling like snow, and for the first time, I could hear the distant sound of many sirens. I set the sword in my car and shouted, “Guys, we’ve got to go now! It’s time to go!”
Well, I’ll definitely have something to write about, I thought to myself as I hopped in the driver’s seat of one of the cars and started the engine, heart thudding heavily in my chest. I looked up through the windshield—was it possible the sky was more orange than it had been a minute ago? I’d never seen a sky that color before—it was otherworldly.
“Dad, we’ve got to go now!” I yelled as he passed my car, his arms full of something.
“Yes, we do,” he said, dumping his armload on the empty passenger seat next to me. “We’re going the back way to Santa Rosa because the other roads are closed.”
Then cars were started and everyone was climbing in. I pulled out my phone to text Diana. It was 1:10 a.m.
“We are leaving now- roads closed- please pray.”
“Praying,” she replied.
“Thank you- I’m shaking now:/ trying to think of anything you want to bring yikes,” I texted. “The sky is orange. Holy cow.”
My foot on the brake pedal was trembling. Of the three cars, mine was to go last, but I was the first in reverse, the first backing up, hoping to pressure the others into moving. Finally, the first two cars took off down the driveway. I backed up at record speed, glancing up at the terrible fiery sky and the lovely ivy-covered wall of my house.
“I’ll see you again,” I whispered to my home as I zoomed down the driveway in the dusty wake of the other two cars, wondering against my will if I would ever drive down it again.
The road was littered with wind-strewn debris and my car crunched noisily over it as I watched trees whipping in the powerful gales. My right leg was shaking so violently I wondered how I was keeping it on the gas. I could feel Jesus was with me in that car.
Our cars reached the crossroads at the end of our dead end street and I breathed a sigh of relief—it was still clear; clear of fire, downed trees, fallen power lines… we would be able to get out.
We barreled through the stop sign, winding our way down the sylvan country lane and up a little hill. Then, through the thick trees, I saw the sight I had been dreading since the first moment I smelled the smoke… well, since every time I had ever smelled smoke, really.
Flames. Towering, raging flames, tall enough to see above the giant evergreens that covered the hills. I didn’t even know flames could get that tall.
How had the fire gotten so far? I had thought it was on Pythian Road—but this was barely a mile from my house. Why weren’t the tanker planes coming? Firefighters couldn’t stop flames that big, could they? Especially in time, which was rapidly running out.
Our cars turned a corner and I craned my neck for another view of those horrible flames, fiery skyscrapers against the night. Unless the firefighters stopped it, I knew the crossroads were going to be engulfed within minutes—we had barely gotten out. Just a little longer and we could have been trapped, might have been driving back home to abandon our cars, grab the cats, and run for the state park behind our house—the only way of escape left.
Foot bouncing uncontrollably up and down on the pedal, I pulled out my phone. “Call Diana,” I told Siri.
Putting my phone on speaker, I quickly updated my friend on what was happening. I just needed to talk to her, to not be alone with my thoughts.
Our three cars reached the backroad to Santa Rosa, which had an unusual amount of traffic—especially for the middle of the night—and it was all going the same direction as us.
I didn’t really know what I was telling Diana over the phone—something like a play-by-play of the drive. More and more cars began to fill the country road so that we all were winding our way like a zippy, panicked convoy. Sirens and flashing lights filled the darkness as a couple of police cars zoomed by in the opposite direction. Cars were parked on the side of the road with people shouting back and forth. Another police car was stopped nearby, its blue and red lights spinning. The sky was such a strange red glow, with not a star in sight. The edges of the hills were brightly tinged with an orange border. The fire was behind us in Kenwood, but something was burning in the hills around us—my numb brain was seeing, but not realizing what was happening.
We finally reached Santa Rosa, and as we turned onto a familiar roadway, I saw that the hills straight ahead in the distance were rimmed with fire. I did not know exactly where those hills were, but I was beginning to understand that we were surrounded.
Almost to Diana’s house, we hung up. My family and I parked the cars and dragged out our luggage and three very unhappy cats as Diana and her husband Russell came out to help us. The air was strangely warm, windy, and thick with choking smoke and ash, easily as bad as it was in Kenwood. We hurried inside where they had closed up all the windows and turned on the air conditioner.
“I thought it was raining at first,” Diana told us, “because the wind was so loud and the ash was falling so thick it looked like rain out the window.”
Trying not to wake Diana and Russell’s children, we brought the cats into a bedroom and opened up the crates. Frightened, they slunk out and hid under the bed. I tried to calm and comfort them—they had never done anything like this before, they didn’t understand, and I was worried that it would dangerously stress them. But at least they would be safe here, could hopefully calm down a little. And hopefully, I could too: my legs were still trembling.
We gathered with our friends and told our stories in hushed tones. Their kindness, encouragement, and support meant the world as my adrenaline slowly began receding. The memory of those towering flames felt seared into my eyes as surely as they were seared into the poor trees in their path. My shaking body and racing heart were beginning to be replaced by a sickening dread in the pit of my stomach. Cold, tense, and nauseous, all I could do was sit on a bench, stare, and make some conversation. Talking helped a little. All my other senses felt numb and sluggish—time seemed to pass in a sickly blur. It was now dreadfully late, but no one seemed to want to go to bed.
Then news came: reports of dozens of fires all over the city. There was one dangerously close to Russell’s dad, and possibly more near Diana’s parents. She pulled out her phone to try to reach them, but no one was answering.
In my checked-out state, it was sluggishly dawning on me that this wasn’t normal; this wasn’t a forest fire in Kenwood and a grass fire Napa—this fire was everywhere. Sonoma County was burning.
Things kept intensifying.
“There’s fire in Fountaingrove,” Russell said, about an hour after our arrival. Fountaingrove was a very wealthy mountainside section of Santa Rosa, covered in multi-million dollar mansions, and had only been constructed since my childhood. Somehow this news shocked me almost more than anything else had. Why couldn’t the firefighters put it out yet? How could Fountaingrove, of all places, have a wildfire?
“It sounds like it’s near your Grandma’s place,” Russell continued, addressing Diana and grabbing his car keys. “I’m going to go check on her.” Diana’s grandma, who had just celebrated her 100th birthday, lived in a retirement home up on Fountaingrove.
Time ticked slowly by, passed by prayers, tears, silence, and tense conversations. I felt a little dizzy and nauseous still, but not a bit sleepy. Diana gave me some essential oils to calm my stomach. I wondered when we would finally go to bed and if I’d ever be able to fall asleep. We waited some more.
“Hannah, look,” Diana said softly on the bench next to me, showing me her phone. “The Round Barn is burning.”
The 118-year-old red round barn was a Santa Rosa historic landmark that sat on the hillside of Fountaingrove, overlooking the city. Shocked, saddened, I stared at the picture on her phone of an unrecognizable frame of a building, engulfed in flames—it was completely gone.
“The barn is right next to my Grandma’s place,” Diana told me, looking worried now.
My head was spinning and grief was welling up inside me, along with the constant numbness and tension that must have been shock. What was happening? What the hell was happening?
Diana gasped, making me jump, once again looking at her phone. “Russell just texted me. He said the entire hillside by my Grandma’s place is on fire and the firetrucks arethere, hosing down the building, trying to save it. When he got there, all the elderly residents were lined up waiting to leave. Russell grabbed a nearby wheelchair, put my Grandma in it, and told her she was about to get very wet. A firefighter took off his helmet and put it on my Grandma as they wheeled her out the doors and through the deluge from the firehoses. Then Russell drove her out of there.”
I think I had covered my mouth with my hands in shock as Diana repeated the story to me. “Oh, Diana, thank God Russell went—thank God he got your Grandma out of there.”
“He just dropped her off at my parents’ and is on his way back here. My parents are OK and there doesn’t seem to be any fire too close to them yet. They were asleep, that’s why they weren’t answering their phone.”
A few minutes later, the front door rattled, opened, and Russell came in, his clothing soaking wet from the firehoses and his face incredibly sober.
“This is really, really bad,” Russell told us all. “The whole hillside by Grandma’s is on fire, so is that mobile home park at the bottom of the hill. There are fires everywhere.”
The mood in the house was shifting drastically. There was a quiet flurry of activity as whispers grew louder, tension mounted, phones were pulled out, and conversations changed. I could feel my adrenaline begin to kick back in, my heart pick up speed. This was far from over.
I got up to make a cup of tea, wanting to move. Even the slimmest thought of sleep was now gone. Russell and my dad were now outside, probably talking with the neighbors or something. At 3:46 a.m., my dad texted me.
“Russell concerned about here now.”
Clutching my mug, I stepped outside to see what was goin on. The cul-de-sac was full of activity, the air full of ash and noise. Even during the busiest commute time, I’d never seen or felt such commotion in that area of town. It was like the very atmosphere was buzzing, and I was beginning to buzz again with it.
Via neighbors, word came that the streets a couple of blocks away were being evacuated. We went back inside, deliberating what to do for a few more moments. But it appeared things were only getting worse, and if evacuations had begun only a few blocks away, it was safest and smartest to leave before it was too late. We would all head to our church in Petaluma, a city about a half hour south. It was time to get out of Santa Rosa.
Part Two
Adrenaline and commotion flared to life once again. The decision made, we sprang into action, and my family and I found ourselves reliving the same experience of evacuation, just a mere two hours since arriving at what
we had thought was a haven far from the fires. It seemed as if nowhere was safe.
Diana went to wake her kids, who mercifully had slept through everything thus far. Russell pulled out suitcases. What would we need at the church? How long would we be there? Would Petaluma stay safe from the fires?
We tried to help as best we could, knowing only too well what this moment felt like in terms of trying to think of what precious belongings to bring. I grabbed a few items I knew were special to the family. Ed unplugged their computer and took it out to their car. I began stuffing food and water bottles into a duffle bag. Our own suitcases were dragged back to our cars yet again. Luckily, Diana had an extra cat-carrier, so at least I wouldn’t be duct-taping a cat in a cardboard box again. We grabbed blow-up mattresses, blankets, and pillows—every one we could find. Items were tossed haphazardly and at random into cars, more messily by the minute as tension mounted and we began to speed things up. Russell and Diana’s kids were shocked to find us all there, their eyes wide and wary as they tried to shake off sleep and hurriedly grab some favorite toys. Their two cats were put in a crate, my family’s three cats each were resignedly forced back inside their own, and all of them loaded into the cars. The kids, still in jammies with stuffed-animals in their arms, climbed in after the cats, only to dash back out again as other important possessions were remembered. One of their cats was escaping out a hole in her carrier and Ed clambered into the overstuffed van to help the children try to catch her. My cup of tea sat forgotten on the coffee table.
A little after 4:00 a.m., ten people and five cats were safely inside the cars that were now reversing and pulling around in the cul-de-sac. My leg on the gas pedal was trembling again, but not nearly as badly as it had the first time. Our three cats were in my car, all meowing in displeasure and fear. From the passenger seat next to me, Ed tried to calm them.
“We’re going to our church in Petaluma,” Russell shouted through his open window at a neighbor. “You are welcome to head there too.”
Like some kind of weird, gloomy parade, our five cars streamed out of the neighborhood to the stoplight that turned onto the main street.
“Oh no!” I cried, staring ahead in shock, even though I should have expected it. The roads ahead were packed—bumper to bumper cars cluttered the streets in every direction, red brake lights glaring beneath the deadly orange glow of the sky overhead. Sirens blared and flashed as emergency vehicles barreled past on the freeway nearby, winding through the frantic traffic that tried to budge out of the way. Our five-car caravan would never stay together.
The light turned green and only Russell’s car made it through. Diana called to tell me Russell would pull over just across the next intersection and wait for us all to catch up, so we’d stay together. One by one, our cars got through the first light and inched across the next intersection, where we pulled over to wait for each other. Bright headlights and sirens flashed in the mirrors and all around us as vehicle after vehicle drove by. It seemed everyone in Santa Rosa had our same idea of taking the backroads to get to Petaluma—but that was probably because everyone else was taking the freeway, if it wasn’t closed yet. I thought of Diana’s kids in their van, wondering how they were doing. I couldn’t even imagine how awful it would be to be a kid at this moment. There was a rumor flying around that the Safeway two blocks from Russell and Diana’s house was on fire. If that was true, what were the chances of their home making it?
Our five cars slowly got through the lights and traffic, each pulling off the road behind the next until we were all together again. Russell took the lead once more as we inched our way back into the traffic and on our way. Diana and I called each other again, putting our phones on speaker so we could talk as our cars crawled along. I could hear the commotion in Diana’s van as one of their cats successfully escaped her carrier and climbed around, meowing. Hearing each other over the speakerphone, all the cats upped their chorus of unhappy mews and yowls. It made us laugh because at this point it was either laugh or cry.
In an endless trail of red taillights, we snailed along, taking it in turns to call one of the five cars on the phone, checking to make sure everyone was ok, chatting nervously about anything, giving each other updates, making sure we were still together. I’d never fully appreciated just how long the winding, hilly backroads to Petaluma were. It seemed as if the entire population of Santa Rosa was fleeing south. Maybe they really were.
As we passed through a town, a new light caught my attention in the dark hills out my driver’s-side window.
Fire. More fire. All along the tops of these nearby hills was a bright orange glow of flame, close enough that I could see the twiggy details of black trees as they burned away. On the other side of those hills was another way into Kenwood—was this the Kenwood fire? Had the wind blown it this far? What did that mean for our home?
Flanked by the eerie, glimmering sight on the left, we tried to ignore it as we made our slow and steady path to Petaluma. The cats meowed until they were too tired to keep meowing. My adrenaline was working again, making my head oddly clear and alert even while I shook with jitters. I sang songs that were prayers, the same lines over and over, the ones that I felt on my heart to sing. It was the only thing I could do. And I wanted to be able to look back on that moment and know I handled it with bravery.
At long, long last we arrived at our church. The Spanish-speaking congregation that shared the building was already there, many of their members having fled Santa Rosa too. The place was bustling, lights were on, noisy voices inside, the parking lot packed. We barely squeezed our cars in.
“We left you the two upstairs rooms,” someone kindly informed us as we began to unload. Diana and her kids remained in their van, laughing in exhaustion and gesturing to me through the closed windows at their cat, who had taken refuge on the dashboard, in front of the steering wheel. Once the cat was safely back in her cage, we dragged our belongings into the building.
It was like stepping into something I’d seen on the news. People were everywhere, huddled in blankets and pajamas, babies crying, children running around with no shoes, makeshift beds set up next to the coffee bar and under tables, pews full of sleeping bags. Another wave of the reality of it all crashed over me as I made my way to the upstairs rooms, the only ones in the entire building that were still empty. We closed all the doors to one room and let five tired, frightened cats out of their crates so they could get to food, water, and litter boxes. Then, after unloading our cars of the belongings we didn’t want to leave outside, there really was nothing left to do but wait.
The adrenaline slowly wore off. Exhaustion set in. But no one could sleep. One of the kids finally nodded off on some blankets on the floor; another made a bed on a desk. Wrapped in a blanket, I found a vacant chair on the landing. Diana perched up on a table next to me, one of her kids sitting beside her. And we waited.
A sunset in Santa Rosa during the fires. There were no filters used on this photo.
The passing of time was a blur. A while later I went outside to fetch something from one of the cars and was shocked to find that the sun had risen. Not that it really looked at all like the sun—a dull reddish-orange orb hung in a sickly gray sky like the scene out of some apocalyptic movie. Ash was so thick that our cars were blanketed as if it had snowed. The world was tinted in shades of orange that reminded me of photos of nuclear testing sites. The air reeked of foul, choking smoke, nothing like the kind from a wood stove. There still must be fires burning, I realized.
No one but the kids had slept, the waiting seemed endless, and morning had come. Restless and tired, a group of us walked a few blocks to a coffee shop. Where usually you’d find bustling, rush-hour customers, this morning the coffee shop was packed with tense crowds, either gathered in groups and talking urgently, or silently glued to their computers, watching the news.
“Sorry, we don’t have a barista working today, we just have plain coffee,” the lady at the counter informed us. Of all days, I thought. No latte, the only food-like substance that sounded at all appealing to my stomach. Then I wondered if the baristas had lost their homes… or were the roads all closed and they couldn’t get to work?
We returned to our vigil at the church. It was very busy, people coming and going, everyone on phones, supplies being dropped off, children running and yelling down the halls. I was immensely grateful for the commotion, it made the place feel alive, filled it with more of an exciting atmosphere than a quiet, dismal one. And while it sucked that we were all suffering, at least we were in it together.
A little later, Russell braved a trip back to Santa Rosa to check things out and get some more supplies. We signed up for police alerts on our phones, entering the zip codes of our homes as directed to receive updates. There was no news to be had of Kenwood. I didn’t know if this was good or bad. But the full gravity of the situation was beginning to sink in as our phones began buzzing with reports and maps of fire areas.
Fires were still burning all over with 0% containment. The Tubbs and the Nuns fires were the two largest blazes, the latter being the one in the gorgeous Sonoma Valley, near Kenwood. The north end of Santa Rosa was devastated. Coffey Park, a suburban neighborhood across the freeway from Fountaingrove, had been obliterated. The death toll had started rising. Two major hospitals had been forced to evacuate in the middle of the night as the fires came frighteningly close to reaching them. Firefighters from other regions were pouring into Sonoma County. Hundreds of evacuees piled into makeshift shelters, halls, and churches. A list of over 400 missing persons was sent out as friends and families desperately tried to get word of them.
Then Kenwood news finally came, bringing with it a reality that sealed the pit of cold dread in our stomachs.
Our neighbor Claudia had somehow heard of two houses on our road in Kenwood that were gone. There was no word yet on either Claudia’s home or ours, but hearing about the fate of our neighbors’ houses struck me like a blow to the head—the firestorm had reached our beautiful country road. In my mind’s eye, I could picture it snaking its way through the trees and over the hills, consuming house after house, like some fiery monster. I pictured the single hill and single house that stood between ours and the ones that had burned, knowing the distance between them was very short. Unless the firefighters had miraculously managed to stop the fire in its tracks right there, little or no chance was left for our sweet home.
My favorite cherry trees, blooming for Valentine’s
Tears finally came. I think they hit everyone in my family then. I hadn’t cried yet, but there was no stopping it now. Even if our house, by some outrageous miracle, survived, our lives would never be the same. Our poor neighbors had lost everything, the beautiful road on which we lived would be scarred and black, the trees charred or gone, the animals scattered, having fled for their lives. I thought of the row of cherry trees that I loved so much, their blossoms pink and fragrant just in time for Valentine’s. I thought of Midnight, Claudia’s sweet cat, who lived outdoors.
“Our beautiful world,” my mom said through a stream of tears.
There have been several tragedies in my life that have hurt physically, like my heart being squeezed inside my chest. Though this was definitely not the worst one I’d walked through, it probably made the top five.
We cried together for a while. Diana cried with us. Her children sat next to us and put their hands on our shoulders, comforting us and grieving with us with maturity beyond their years.
Suddenly I remembered something, and of all things to worry about, I cried, “Diana, I’m so sorry, I still had that beautiful old book I borrowed from you!”
She just looked tearily at me.
“Oh, Hannah, it’s so ok.”
The first good news arrived when Russell returned with more supplies and let everyone know that his and Diana’s house was safe and that currently there seemed to be no danger in that area of town. Some of the rumors, like the one that the Safeway near their house was burning, turned out to be nothing but that—a rumor.
Still, it was safest to stay in Petaluma, at least one more night, as fires all over Santa Rosa were still raging, uncontained and unpredictable. We made a run to Whole Foods for basic supplies—things like toothpaste and deodorant that I had not bothered to grab. Getting a few items for an overnight trip was one thing, but when I walked down the aisle, looking at the prices of stupid things like nail polish, hair products, mineral makeup, and everything—literally everything—else I used on a normal day, my mind froze. How did you start over? How did you buy everything again? How much would it cost? Where did you even begin? A hairbrush and soap were one thing, but what about clothes? What about books? CDs? Kitchen utensils? Pushpins, scissors, pencils, Christmas decorations, that last pair of socks you keep in case all the others are dirty, birth certificates, car registrations, old school records, drawings I made as a child, the dollhouse I wanted to pass down to my children, all my dad’s incredible paintings and art, my Grandma’s china, my mom’s upright grand, the souvenirs my Grandpa had brought back from WWII Europe, my one-of-a-kind original Millennium Falcon painting, drawn specially for me by the set designer…
Staring at the shelves of lotion in the grocery store, I felt like an unsurmountable task lay before me and my frozen brain could not begin to comprehend how to do it. Diana and her kids kindly helped me break it down so that I could get the basic supplies I needed, even for the next couple of days. I had to start somewhere. One step at a time. I grabbed a tube of toothpaste.
As I filled up a basket with essential, everyday items, a stranger walked up next to me, her cart full of similar things. Our eyes met.
“Lost your house too?” she asked sadly.
Diana’s kids answered for me as I, eyes filling with tears, exchanged a brief, knowing look with the woman, then walked quickly away.
The other evacuees taking refuge at the church with us had found new places to stay, thus the building fell quiet and still as night settled in. I was hugely blessed when three kind friends stopped by to check on us; one bringing tons of groceries with him, another to gives hugs and food out of her own fridge, and the third, Ariana, coming just to sit with us and offer her company. My back was beginning to hurt pretty badly from lifting the overly-heavy boxes in my adrenaline, so Ariana went to the store and came back with a heating pad for me. Her kindness meant the world.
As it grew late, we all settled down on air mattresses, still feeling strangely buzzed for not having slept in over 40 hours, not showering in over a day, covered in smelly ash and smoke, and with bodies aching and heads pounding.
I opened up my suitcase and backpacks to organize them, as the previous night I had flung things pell-mell into them with no sense or order at all. I also wanted to see what precious possessions I had managed to grab in the dark and chaos—there was so much I had done without conscious thought. I felt teary relief at finding things like my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a few sentimental necklaces, and a photo of me and my brother as kids. I smiled at the silly things like my easily-replaceable funko pop niffler and flat iron. Then I pulled out an old-fashioned little book and burst into tears.
“Diana,” I said croakily, “it’s the book you loaned me. I didn’t know I grabbed it.” I held it out to her.
Tears in her eyes too, she smiled gently.
“Why don’t you keep it.”
The fires burned in the north bay region of California for 23 days, consuming thousands of acres of land, around 9,000 structures, and killing at least 45 people. On the night of October 8th, six different fires all ignited within fifteen minutes of each other, instantly creating rare chaos. Driven by near-hurricane-force winds, the flames took off at a record pace, traveling at around 3mph, burning about an acre a minute, and in some areas, causing fire whirls that ripped garage doors off their hinges and flipped cars over.
Embers blown about a half-mile ahead erupted into more fires, which made it nearly impossible to get ahead of the inferno. At 2:00 a.m., propelled by the winds exceeding 50mph, the Tubbs fire leaped the 6 lanes of Highway 101, an unprecedented jump. Dispatchers were receiving more than 300 calls an hour, which is about as much as they usually take in one day.
The number of fires almost simultaneously erupting, the speed with which they moved, and the fact that it happened in the middle of the night when most people were fast asleep, made for a pretty perfect storm. Many Sonoma County residents had little to no warning before the flames were upon them, some waking just in time from the power going off or hearing strange noises, others from brave neighbors banging on their doors. Forced to escape with nothing but the clothes on their backs, many didn’t even have enough time to make it to a car and fled on foot. Some didn’t escape at all.
Heroic firefighters worked round the clock, going with nothing but a granola bar for two days straight. All night long, medical personnel bravely evacuated patients from the hospitals—in some cases, while their own homes burned. As the firestorm continued to rage, firefighters from 14 states, plus Canada and Australia rushed to Sonoma County’s aid, increasing the ranks to around 5,312. The only 747 supertanker in the world, able to drop a 19,200-gallon-load of fire retardant, was called in.
My mom and me beneath one of the many signs thanking heroic first responders.
The President issued a state of emergency for California. The national guard, in their Humvees and camouflage, began arriving with more first responders. Schools were canceled, stores and roads were closed. In many sections of the city, curfews were enforced at sunset, with warnings that anyone entering the areas would be arrested. Mandatory evacuation orders continued to increase for more and more neighborhoods. Mail and deliveries were delayed or canceled. Amazon.com stopped delivering to Santa Rosa altogether. Looters, dressed up as police, told apartment buildings to evacuate, only to clean them out once the residents had left. Trucks labeled “Disaster Relief” began pouring in. Entire fields became camps filled with trailers and buses sporting names like FEMA and Red Cross. Blocked by police and national guard, different highways, roads, and entire sections of town remained closed, even after the fires had moved on, as burn-areas were dangerous, power-lines downed, and the rubble left behind highly toxic. Before letting people back in, emergency personnel also needed to first search in the ruins for missing persons, now presumed dead.
I soon understood why the planes with the fire-retardant and the firefighters never came to Kenwood that night: in the midst of a record-breaking firestorm, they didn’t even have time to, and tiny Kenwood was the least of the priorities.
All that was left of my Lord of the Rings replica sword, Sting.
My brother and I moved in with Diana and her family the day following our campout at the church. Over the next few weeks, we lived in a constant state of adrenaline as our phones buzzed with updates and alerts from the Sonoma County Sheriff. With fires still burning all over, nothing was certain. We continued living out of suitcases, even packing new ones so that we’d be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice.
Nerves tense, the wail of sirens made my stomach clench in panicky knots, instantly bringing me back to the moment I was leaving my house in Kenwood and first heard sirens. Every unknown noise sounded like an explosion to me. I jumped at loud sounds and bright lights. I figure some sort of post-traumatic shock had something to do with it.
The magnitude of the devastation grew clearer as everywhere we went people carried it with them—faces white in shock, eyes blank and glazed, sobbing on each others’ shoulders in the middle of department stores. There was nowhere we didn’t see people loading up their carts with socks and underwear and other basic necessities, or hear story after story of terrible loss. I have yet to run into someone who doesn’t know at least one person who lost their home.
Chunks of ash I found on Diana’s front lawn.
Urban areas of my hometown were reduced to wastelands. Driving through places like Coffey Park and Fountaingrove looked more like the sight of an apocalypse than anything close to the suburban neighborhoods I remembered. Piles of rubble, charred, brown cars, and ghostly chimneys sticking oddly out of the middle of nothing are all that remain in more places than I care to count. The fires burned so hot that even fireproof safes were found with burned so hot that even fireproof safes were found with everything inside them turned to ash. Half of the dress shop where I purchased a bridesmaid’s dress for a friend’s wedding, just a week before the fires, was gone. Entire acres in the middle of the city became eerily pitch dark at night, like burnt-out bulbs on a strand of lights.
Chunks of ash filled the air and littered the ground, some pieces so big that I could read words on them, revealing that they had once been pages to something. Walking down a sidewalk in a pretty, middle-class neighborhood, I found myself passing trailers parked in front of houses, a displaced teenage girl reading a book on the sidewalk, a group of boys shooting hoops, their faces covered with N95 masks. Even with my own mask, I was forced to order an inhaler from my doctor as the asthma I hadn’t had in years suddenly flared up from the constant toxic smoke. I honestly wondered if I’d ever get the stench of it out of my nose again. I’ll certainly never forget the color of the setting sun, red as blood, during those days. Maybe I’ll change, but as of this writing, I’ve rather lost my liking for sunsets altogether.
One of the many signs posted on the roads.
But Sonoma County rose gallantly to the challenges. Before long, the firefighters began asking people to stop bringing them food because it was going to go bad before they had a chance to eat it; business after business filled their offices with donation piles; restaurants gave away free food; neighborhoods crowded with cars as residents packed displaced friends into their homes; fire victim discounts became normal in many stores; the streets were plastered with countless signs unifying us with the phrase “Sonoma County Strong” and thanking the emergency responders who had rushed to save us. Stories of bravery, kindness, and generosity are there to match the ones of grief and devastation. And everywhere in Santa Rosa, you will still find signs declaring: “From the ashes, the Phoenix will rise.”
Six long days after the firestorm started, my family and I received word that our house and everything we owned was, indeed, gone. Except for our flag, raised on its pole in the yard, which alone made it through the inferno unscathed. Fleeing the fires that night was, indeed, the last time I ever drove down our driveway. I don't know if I will ever go back. I like to remember it in my imagination as it was.
Claudia’s home somehow thankfully escaped the destruction, and her cat Midnight was found safe and well.
I would later learn that there were two large fires in Kenwood, converging from different directions and engulfing our property. Had the crossroads been blocked when we reached them that night, and had we been forced to try escaping on foot across the state park, we would only have encountered another firestorm coming from that direction. We had been more surrounded than we even knew. And I understand now why the voice inside me told me to leave the photos behind, told me that it was going to be ok when it obviously wasn’t. I was about slow everything down by trying to save the albums, an act that likely would have delayed us long enough for the fires to reach the crossroads. It was the only thing I could have heard that would have made me willing to leave in time.
A burned mountain in Kenwood.