I've checked in with the people I know in Southern California. One couple was forced to evacuate their home, but they're doing fine, staying with family.

The fires were immense, but damage was limited mostly to dwellings, not people. The land will come back, perhaps better than before. Humans, however, are not likely to return smarter, only better insured. It would be nice if we, as Senator Feinstein suggests, would live outside of deadly fire and flood zones, but it's so beautiful, so pristine there.

We think about our own home, our own location. We live on a paved road, not too far from a fire house. We are surrounded by forest lands, and one day these trees will burn.

But we're not planning to move. Those of us lucky enough to live on the coast have no right to criticize people of the southlands who also want to live near deer, puma, tortoises, beauty, and danger.

Hey, it's California, dude.

Or, as the County of San Diego puts it on their web site, "Many portions of the unincorporated areas of the County... share expansive, rural settings of native plant life. Fire is an important factor in maintaining the healthy status of these native plant species. Since these areas are also highly desirable places in which to live, maintaining a defensible fire space around structures is essential and required..."

Defensible space has been a legally binding requirement since the 2003 Firestorms in San Diego county. Clearly, what people are doing is not enough. Nothing is enough when the Monster rages.

In winter, following the fires, the rains bring sliding hillsides, slope failure, and all the rest.

Hey, it's California, dude.

Times like these make me think of books by the venerable John McPhee, especially The Control of Nature. McPhee talks about the Mississippi as it flows toward New Orleans, and about Los Angeles as agencies work to catch debris flows off the San Gabriel mountains. Along the way one resident memorably tells McPhee, "When the Santa Ana winds blow, and a big fire gets under way, you're not going to be able to hold it if it ever comes through here. That is a risk you take."

Asked if he had contemplated moving away, "the look that came into his face suggested that he was confronting a strange, unprecedented question. He said, 'It never entered my mind.' "

In Young Men and Fire Norman Maclean told the story of an elite group of airborne firefighters who died less than an hour after jumping into a fire in Montana one hot August in 1949. The story is chilling, heroic, well told, sad.

If the real lives of firefighters interest you, you might want to pick up Fire on the Rim, A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon. Stephen Pyne tells the story of 15 summers spent fighting fires there.

His book ends with a passage that reads like a prayer. Maybe it's the best memorial we could have to the current conflagrations:

"The October darkness comes early.

"Thickening clouds shut off the sunset, and some break free and settle in the Canyon... By the time the car is loaded, snow begins to fall. At Lindbergh Hill it is snowing heavily. If I can make it to Jacob, I'll be fine. Fire season is over.

"At Little Park winds whip the snow into whirls and clouds. For an instant -- a blink of the mind -- I blank into reverie. The snow turns to smoke; the car headlights, to headlamps. There is a clamor of shouts; the rasp of a chain saw; the thunk and scraping of pulaskis and shovels, the snap of falling branches; the rush of flames. Through the smoke and noise I see a fire.

"It is a fire I will always carry within me."

Aired Sunday October 28, 2007 at 10:55 am and Wednesday October 31, 2007 at 1:00 pm

Orders/Information:

The Control of Nature by John McPhee. Farrar, Straus and Giroux paperback $15. ISBN 0374522596.

Young Men & Fire by Norman Macclean. University of Chicago Press paperback $14. ISBN 0226500624.

Fire on the Rim, A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon by Stephen J. Pyne. University of Washington Press paperback $25. ISBN 0295974834.

You might also enjoy:

Burning Bush, A Fire History of Australia also by Stephen J. Pyne. University of Washington Press paperback $24.95. ISBN 0295976772. First published in 1991, new preface 1998, part of a series by the publisher called Cycle of Fire.

The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2007 edited by Richard Preston. Houghton Mifflin Company paperback $14. ISBN 0618722319.

And, for some deep background:

Trees of the California Landscape by Charles R. Hatch. University of California Press hardcover $60. ISBN 9780520251243. Magnificent, illustrated, definitive.

Meetings with Remarkable Trees by Thomas Pakenham. Random House paperback $24.95. ISBN 0375752684.

Mythic Woods, The World's Most Remarkable Forests by Jonathan Roberts, Foreword by Thomas Pakenham. Weidenfeld & Nicolson hardcover $34.95 (imported) ISBN 0297843524. Includes the California kelp forest, amazingly enough.

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Copyright © 2007. All materials posted here are copyright protected. Please do not copy or distribute without contacting Tony Miksak for written permission.