• The Publisher’s Notebook •

No Holiday from Wildfire

BY ANNE SOBLE

When the first predawn telephone calls started, I huddled against the early-hour chill and rethought the last-minute jottings in my Notebook column from the previous week’s issue. I had headlined it a “Red Flag Holiday,” and I drew some assurance from the local marshaling of firefighting personnel and equipment in response to the all-too-accurately forecast Santa Ana winds. Malibu had gone through the Canyon Fire a month earlier and has already endured more episodes of these powerful winds in several months than was usually the case in several years. As a community, we were lucky that the losses, however intense for those who experienced them, were low. But on Saturday, that luck ran out. Even though last weekend’s winds paled beside the hurricane-force blasts of Oct. 21, they still were, as I ruefully noted last week, the ingredients of fire weather. Lesser winds with low humidity and parched vegetation in the wrong terrain are as lethal as winds of double the force under less strained conditions. Those of us who have lived in Malibu long enough have instinctive responses to these conditions. Newcomers may think we obsess about nature and the weather, but we have learned the futility of thinking that either’s attributes can be harnessed by personal power.

Those who play by these natural rules know that they have to acknowledge this force in the same way a farmer acknowledges the role of nature in bringing crops to harvest. I think locals who raise horses, llamas and other livestock that haven’t had all of their instincts bred out of them connect to this natural force in a special way. During the Santa Anas, I go out to the corrals and watch how the animals react to the sound and the motion of the wind. Animals know when there is even the slightest scent of fire in the air; they become more acutely aware of their surroundings. Humans need that connection and awareness.

We reiterate County Fire Chief Michael Freeman’s request that we all “pray for rain,” however one interprets the concept of prayer. If we don’t receive at least three-to-four inches of deep, saturating rainfall, there’s no way of telling where the next Malibu firestorm may strike. While we watch and wait, we can take time out for this Sunday’s community gathering at Bluffs Park from noon to 2. The park is the site of the assistance center for fire victims, but everyone is invited to come together in a show of local support and solidarity. It’s a reminder that even if you moved here for privacy, you need to forge bonds for times of crisis.