Under Fire

I've never missed the cool breeze and fog quite as much as I do right now -- 8:34 p.m., 6-20-21-08.

The temperature's been in the mid-90s to low 100s in the East Bay Area and Sacramento region for the last week. That means the delta breeze we usually enjoy in Solano County has turned into something you'd expect standing near a blast furnace. I wasn't aware that we were in fire country here, but ... judging by the billowing gray smoke that has blocked out the sun in front of my kids' house ... I've decided we're smack in the middle of the type place that can burn as quickly and tragically as somewhere in Southern California.

There's a 750-acre fire burning out of control in Napa County and has hopped a series of mountain ridges into Solano County -- the county where we reside these days. You know how when you hear about a fire you subconciously think, "Oh, OK ... it's there ... I'm here ... there are X miles and a lake between the fire and me. I'm safe," right? Well, I've gone through that subconscious process about 101 times in the last couple hours and can't decide if my kids and I are safe or not.

Earthquake? Fine. I know earthquakes. Big storms? Rain. Mudslides. Floods. Aces! I can handle it. Fires? I don't know anything about fires except that they take on a life of their own and, in the case of the one burning to the north of us, give me an extreme case of the skeevies.

There's a 300-acre grass fire burning on the other side of my little town -- oh, it's not my town! This place is where I store my stuff and sleep at night. I'm only here now because my children are here. The grass fire is on the north side of Highway 12, which is a mile from I-80 ... which runs right through Fairfield and Vacaville and Vallejo and Davis.

I don't know a great deal about Armageddon and I never mention it in regard to natural disasters or the like. I don't take God's return to earth lightly and, frankly, I expect it at some point. With the mountain due north of my kids' front room window blocked by dark, black smoke ... and gray smoke billowing from the other direction as I look out the kitchen window ... I'm thinking, you know, if I were around for the end of times, I'd expect it to look kind of like this.

FYI: I prefer earthquakes to fire ... just so you know.