Jesusita fire

In Santa Barbara we have what’s called a ‘sundowner wind’. It’s the same as a ‘Santa Ana wind’ in Orange County. However here, it’s a particularly loathsome creature. It only comes out at night, after a cool day, and howls through the canyons and passes, without warning, baking the shore in 100 degree heat until about one or two in the morning. Now, ordinarily, I like this cagey beast ..it allows me to lie on the deck in the evening, or go for a swim in the ocean at midnight. However, it also has the power to take a stray ember from a campfire and turn it into a blazing wildfire that blasts out of the mountains, and tears through town like a blowtorch without stopping until it reaches the shore. And then, just before dawn; it retreats back up into the mountains ..like the nocturnal predator that it is. Morning comes and everything is fine ..except for a few hundred acres of scorched earth and homes. No one knows when it’s coming and no one can stop it when it arrives. It’s like living next to a dragon. This afternoon is perfectly calm ..except for a high-voltage current circulating through my system. I tell my neighbor I think it’s coming back again tonight. He nods and looks up the canyon. Overhead, hawks are circling. “They’re looking for barbecued rats” he says. My nerves fray. We’ve been under evacuation orders for four days. This means that my car is packed and sitting outside the canyon. I defy the order and sit at home awake all night, listening to the drone of water-dropping helicopters rumbling overhead ..and waiting for either smoke ..sirens ..or flames ..to tell me when it’s time to leave ..or else hang around and risk being served as breakfast for hawks at sunrise.