This time it's personal

Both houses in which I lived in that canyon still stand, but both are now in the Level 3 evacuation zone — residents are required to leave. Given the state of the fire — 20,000 acres and zero containment as I write this — whether those houses will still be standing when this thing is all over is anyone’s guess.

One’s home is more than just the house (or apartment or condominium or whatever) in which one lives. For 19 years my home was Brentwood, Santa Monica and the Pacific Palisades, all of which are now seeing damage of one degree or another. The Pacific Palisades, being where the fire started, has suffered the most so far. My siblings and I went to Palisades High School, which has been severely damaged, if not completely destroyed. Most of the downtown Palisades appears to be gone, leaving me with only my memories of a place where I spent a fair amount of time growing up. Then again, I can hardly complain — in the early hours of Wednesday morning the house of some of my dearest friends succumbed to the Pacific Palisades flames, leaving them, along with so many others, safe and alive but grieving and wondering where to turn next.

After all my years of living near fires while not being directly affected by them, it seems almost as if this particular fire has a personal mission to make up for those earlier near misses and destroy my and my siblings’ childhoods. Our junior high school? Damaged. Our elementary school? Still untouched, but then again it is located within a Red Flag Warning Area and stands only a half-dozen blocks from a mandatory evacuation zone. Depending upon the direction the fire takes, there is a real chance that the shops where my family and I once shopped, the theaters where we saw movies, the parks where we played, and even the church we attended on Sundays could all succumb to this one incredibly powerful fire.

Watching the activity from afar — and praying for everyone affected — I find myself wondering what things would have been like if this particular fire had occurred back when my family was still living in Mandeville Canyon. Our parents were well aware of the dangers and taught by example to be prepared. Not only did they keep the vegetation on our property in check — and well up the hillside behind our house — they installed rain sprinklers atop the roof that could wet the entire house down. Knowing that during a major event we might lose water pressure, they installed a standpipe that allowed the sprinklers to be supplied by a fire hose. And because we had a swimming pool, they purchased a gasoline-powered water pump and fire hoses that could employ the pool water to simultaneously wet down the house and directly attack any nearby fires. Dad was prepared to stay and fight — something he actually did later on after he and Mom moved down toward San Diego.

My current home may not have a pool, a pump or rooftop sprinklers, but I nevertheless do what I can to stay prepared not just for fire, but for high winds, earthquakes and heavy rains. Our climate is changing, and if a fire like the Palisades can happen in L.A., it can happen here.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.