Yesterday and today, I've seen multiple news articles about fires along the riverfront in my city. Different spots not just ignited, but with roaring blazes that take all day to battle. Yesterdays involved propane tanks. Today there's at least two blazes on different spots on the waterfront near me. And two islands in the river on fire as well.
It has to be arson. The spots are all known homeless campsites.
Then this evening I saw a report of a fire that mysteriously broke out in the brush along a freeway on the opposite side of where I live.
I have been hacking with this rough cough the last few days from the smoke in the air. Yesterday the air was so thick, it was nearly chewy. My asthmatic daughter had a hard time too.
I am safe. But I am having bad adrenaline from this. I know it's some arsonist criddler. Someone all methed out and psychotic, lighting fires.
My city has multiple rivers that flow through it. There are some homeless who live full time on sailboats out in the river. Like pirates sort of. I think maybe one of them is starting the fires. Because we have big islands ablaze.
I am on the outside very calm. I watched a movie (La Bamba) with my daughter. But on the inside, It's the mid 1980s again, and I'm a little girl, alone as usual, out in the desert.
Nothing scares me more than wildfire. I was a small child alone in the desert as fire raced down the mountain toward me. My parents were about twenty miles away in town.
I was playing outside barefoot. I looked out past the garden and up the hill. I saw the flames behind different ridge lines. The black smoke. I was confused. What was that red and black moving towards me like a monster? I felt a sickening feeling from head to toe. I didn't understand what was going on. I stood there, paralyzed. I blacked out. I don't know how long I stood there.
My next memory is being shook violently and slapped because I wouldn't move or acknowledge anyone. I sort of woke up a little. I then remember being inside my grandma's house. But repeatedly blacking out and being shaken awake.
The mountain we lived on, east of town, was the biggest around. My parents and grandparents had separately, from wherever they were, seen the location of the smoke. They had raced home.
The fire raged as my father and grandfather plowed deep fire lines around the property. We had a very long driveway. I was ordered to play out by the road, even with the smoke in the air, so that the fire dept would know that the trailers on this parcel was occupied, and there were children present. That way they wouldn't let it burn.
There are quite a few empty trailers out in the boonies. Often when someone builds a house, they'll tow their trailer off and leave it in a gully or if the folks get old or move out, same thing. My family wanted to send a very strong signal that our property was to be saved.
I would get yelled at by firefighters to go back home. The first time it happened I did run back to my parents. But they told me my butt would be beat if I didn't stay down by the road.
And so I did. And the firefighters fought all night, with my father and grandfather plowing, mowing, and watering.
Many outbuildings burned. The fire dept tried to order us to leave. But my parents kept me and my baby brother in the trailer all night, where we lived, at the back of the property. The fire got within 20 feet of our trailer. But because we were kept in the trailer, the fire dept saved the homes.
There were other fires as well, growing up. And every time I had to play by the road. Even with the smoke. Even with the panic.
I don't know how many firefighters yelled at me over the years to get home. But I was under orders to stay by the road. It's a point of trauma. But it did save our home multiple times.
I'm still scarred from that. Fire near me, and suddenly I'm in my heart, in survivalist mode.
Save the heirlooms. Plow the fireline. Water everything.
Even though I'm not living in the country anymore, that is my mindset. I am always hyperaware of fire in the summertime.
And there's an arsonist setting fire to the riverfront. I live nearly right on the riverfront. I am not afraid of fire at my home. But the drums of fear still pound in my heart.
It has to be arson. The spots are all known homeless campsites.
Then this evening I saw a report of a fire that mysteriously broke out in the brush along a freeway on the opposite side of where I live.
I have been hacking with this rough cough the last few days from the smoke in the air. Yesterday the air was so thick, it was nearly chewy. My asthmatic daughter had a hard time too.
I am safe. But I am having bad adrenaline from this. I know it's some arsonist criddler. Someone all methed out and psychotic, lighting fires.
My city has multiple rivers that flow through it. There are some homeless who live full time on sailboats out in the river. Like pirates sort of. I think maybe one of them is starting the fires. Because we have big islands ablaze.
I am on the outside very calm. I watched a movie (La Bamba) with my daughter. But on the inside, It's the mid 1980s again, and I'm a little girl, alone as usual, out in the desert.
Nothing scares me more than wildfire. I was a small child alone in the desert as fire raced down the mountain toward me. My parents were about twenty miles away in town.
I was playing outside barefoot. I looked out past the garden and up the hill. I saw the flames behind different ridge lines. The black smoke. I was confused. What was that red and black moving towards me like a monster? I felt a sickening feeling from head to toe. I didn't understand what was going on. I stood there, paralyzed. I blacked out. I don't know how long I stood there.
My next memory is being shook violently and slapped because I wouldn't move or acknowledge anyone. I sort of woke up a little. I then remember being inside my grandma's house. But repeatedly blacking out and being shaken awake.
The mountain we lived on, east of town, was the biggest around. My parents and grandparents had separately, from wherever they were, seen the location of the smoke. They had raced home.
The fire raged as my father and grandfather plowed deep fire lines around the property. We had a very long driveway. I was ordered to play out by the road, even with the smoke in the air, so that the fire dept would know that the trailers on this parcel was occupied, and there were children present. That way they wouldn't let it burn.
There are quite a few empty trailers out in the boonies. Often when someone builds a house, they'll tow their trailer off and leave it in a gully or if the folks get old or move out, same thing. My family wanted to send a very strong signal that our property was to be saved.
I would get yelled at by firefighters to go back home. The first time it happened I did run back to my parents. But they told me my butt would be beat if I didn't stay down by the road.
And so I did. And the firefighters fought all night, with my father and grandfather plowing, mowing, and watering.
Many outbuildings burned. The fire dept tried to order us to leave. But my parents kept me and my baby brother in the trailer all night, where we lived, at the back of the property. The fire got within 20 feet of our trailer. But because we were kept in the trailer, the fire dept saved the homes.
There were other fires as well, growing up. And every time I had to play by the road. Even with the smoke. Even with the panic.
I don't know how many firefighters yelled at me over the years to get home. But I was under orders to stay by the road. It's a point of trauma. But it did save our home multiple times.
I'm still scarred from that. Fire near me, and suddenly I'm in my heart, in survivalist mode.
Save the heirlooms. Plow the fireline. Water everything.
Even though I'm not living in the country anymore, that is my mindset. I am always hyperaware of fire in the summertime.
And there's an arsonist setting fire to the riverfront. I live nearly right on the riverfront. I am not afraid of fire at my home. But the drums of fear still pound in my heart.
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