Santa Rosa Fire

Santa Rosa Fire - October 9th, 2017

Alycia and I woke up at around 2:00 AM to some popping sounds and sirens.  At first, I assumed some people were playing with firecrackers around the area but Alycia got up and looked out our window to see an orange glow in the distance.  I checked my phone and saw an alert mentioning a fire coming toward Santa Rosa (Thanks creeper Google).

We got dressed and started to assess the situation...  I heard our neighbor outside, so I went down.  After a quick conversation he mentioned that the fire hopped the freeway and may be headed in our direction.  For about 10 minutes, we both hosed down our backyard, fence and sides of the house.  As I was doing it, it felt pretty futile.  Alycia in the meantime was packing some stuff and gathering the cat...  After a bit, we decided to leave so we took off in both cars.  Alycia left first while I gathered more items.  We came up with a game plan to get off the main road and head to her mom's place about 20 miles away.

The traffic was just as bad as expected, but everyone was being orderly and surprisingly civil.  The traffic lights were out but people weren't being jerks.  Have you guys seen Silent Hill where the ash is falling from the sky?  It's weird to actually be in that situation - I didn't think that was actually a thing.  Driving down, I saw a lot of people gathered in parking lots, probably trying to figure out their next move - I assume if we didn't have a place to stay we would have done the same.  The drive there was ended up being uneventful other than having a cat who thought the world was going to end.

Once we got settled down, I actually had a decision to make - October 9th was my first day at my new job in SF!  I ended up going since there was really nothing to be done other than watch the news.  It was a little odd to be at work trying to pay attention to the onboarding presentations while worrying about the house!

Happily everything turned out OK in the end - I did accidentally forget to bring the small fireproof safe that has our passports and little items (we're not ballers stashing $$$) but Alycia went with her friends to pick it up.  (side story:  After we evacuated the next thing we had to worry about were looters.  Yay USA) Some neighbors stayed behind and posted the "you loot, we shoot" around - so now I know some people are packing firepower around here.

I think we got to go back to the house after 4-5 days but we were without gas for another 2.  Cold showers are a small price to pay for being so lucky.

Stuff

So I say this in afterthought, but while I was packing I realized I answered the question of what I would take if I only had a few minutes...  Turns out I'm not a very sentimental guy (who knew?) all the "stuff" I have really doesn't matter that much to me - Other than the essential clothes and towels I grabbed my external hard drive but left everything else.  While waiting to see if the house was still standing or not, I honestly didn't feel that sad about the stuff I left behind.  I guess in the end, I could do without the old console games, the monitor, or any smaller things I happen to accumulate throughout the years.  I don't think that means I'm going to go all minimalist in the future, but maybe it's something for me to reflect on!