There are two red grocery carts parked next to a white pillar in front of Starbucks in Five Points shopping center in Santa Barbara. It’s a warm, breezy Tuesday afternoon. I’m sitting on the covered patio. There are ceiling fans overhead. I’m taking my lunch break to write and drink iced tea. A woman talking with her friend in the corner of the patio sees some smoke and gets up to look. It looks like someone is having a barbecue. I go inside to use the restroom. When I come back outside a few minutes later, the woman is still standing, talking on her cell phone.
She says, “I’m looking at the fire. It’s growing so fast. It’s right on the hill.”
I look up. The column of smoke is bigger. It’s grey and brown and shooting up waves of smoke like a smoke signal to God. Through the brown smoke, I can see the bright orange of the flames.
“Okay, I’m coming home,” the woman still sitting in the corner says. She hangs up the phone and turns to her friend. “I’ve got to go. It’s right behind my house. I was just talking to my husband and told him, ‘Go outside and look at the fire.’ Well he went outside and said it was right next to our house. He told me to come home.”
Her friend consoled her, tried to calm her down. They talked for a few more minutes. The woman whose home was close to the fire was remarkably calm considering the circumstances. Maybe because this would be the third fire Santa Barbara has had in the last year. The Tea Fire, which happened only a few months ago, burned dozens of homes. Maybe they’ve gotten used to the drama.
“I just wanted a relaxing day!” she lamented. “I wanted to read on my deck!”
Hopefully you still have a deck in a few hours, I thought.
The smoke thickens. Bright flames leap above the smoke plume, climbing higher up the hill. Two middle aged Hispanics watch the fire from the patio, sipping their coffee drinks. They watch the people watching the fire. An older woman sitting nearby asks them for the time.
“1:56,” the man says. I realize I need to get back to work. I get up and walk to my car, passing people staring at the column of smoke.
I take the long way back to work to get a better glance at the fire. As I drive toward the foothills, the column of smoke looks like it is just to my right, only a few miles away. The wind is blowing hard, whipping palm leaves and oak trees toward the South East, toward Santa Barbara. Not a good sign.
