Firefighters strategize at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue in Calistoga Monday morning as smoke hangs in the air from the Glass Fire.
In the end, things turned out OK, as I had (tentatively) assumed they would.
We returned home late Sunday evening after the mandatory evocation had been lifted in Calistoga.
While the fire had come within sight of our house, there was no damage inside the city, and everything was exactly where we left it when we fled a week before.
We lost some perishables in the fridge and may have lost the red blend fermenting in a tank in the driveway, but otherwise, we and the other residents of the city got off lightly.
We lived for a few days under a thick cloud of smelly smoke, and under the shadow of the remaining evacuation warning. We repacked our to-go bags and set them aside – just in case.
By Wednesday, however, the warning was lifted and the air began to clear. Temperatures dropped to a fall-like normal, and air quality improved enough to turn off the AC and open the windows.
Except for the incessant clatter of helicopters replacing power poles in the hills east of town, it was almost like a normal, pleasant October day Upvalley.
But really, so much has changed.
The beautiful hills are scorched, with blackened soil pockmarked by the bone-white ash marking what used to be a bush or a tree. Piles of rubbish are still smoldering along the roadsides while crews cut down burned hulks of trees to keep them from falling on roads, powerlines, and houses.
And so many houses and buildings are lost across the area. Friends lost homes and their workplaces outside Calistoga and St. Helena and up the hills into Angwin and Deer Park. Several of our Register freelance writers, columnists, and former employees lost homes in the fire. Their anguish on social media was heartbreaking, but their determination to rebuild their lives was an inspiration.
Even those whose homes were untouched feel the loss. Our neighbors are a delightful, newly married couple in their early 20s. They were just starting their Napa Valley lives together, he working at Calistoga Ranch and she at Castello di Amorosa.
When the fires broke out, they evacuated to Colorado, where they have family, taking with them their equally delightful cat, who we enjoyed watching guard our yard from the scourge of gophers and blue jays.
But with their work-places burned – the Ranch completely and the Castle partially – they decided they had enough. Instead of packing up the cat to head back west, they are going to keep going east to resettle with other family in Virginia.
The fires ended their California dream and, in the span of just a few days, altered the course of their young lives.
That small story will no doubt be repeated many times over as people begin to process the meaning and consequences of our new post-fire world.
The scars of a fire like this are both obvious on the outside world and unseen on our private, inside world.
When we arrived home Sunday night, everything seemed to us to be exactly as we left it. Time is telling just how wrong we were.
Watch Now: Aerial video reveals scorched landscape from Glass Fire
You can reach Sean Scully at 256-2246 or sscully@napanews.com.
You can reach Sean Scully at 256-2246 or sscully@napanews.com.
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