The Fire This Time

Tragedy is not necessarily compounded by numbers. A Glendale firefighter, Bill Jensen, lies in the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital with burns over 70% of his body. The fact that there are not dozens of others in similar circumstances is a relief. But, for Jensen, there is the pain and the knowledge that, even after recovery, life will never be the same. In San Diego County, meanwhile, 60 families or individuals have had their homes destroyed in the La Costa section of Carlsbad. That five times that number were not lost is welcome news. Yet, each smoldering home site bespeaks a tragedy--a home lost, finances devastated, continuities and memories wiped out--complete and horrible unto itself.

At first glance, it was 1993 all over again. The flames, the fire trucks and firefighters rushing toward the blazing canyons, the angry red against the nighttime sky, the refugees huddled in blankets, the smoking ruins, the people sifting through debris representing all that is left of their once-stable lives. All too recently, Southern Californians had been there and done that. So when the fires broke out early last week, many accustomed to former scenarios expected the worst.

Yet, by Wednesday, Thursday for sure, it was increasingly evident that it would not be deja vu all over again. Firefighting units from throughout the region (and from as far north as Novato in Marin County) converged on the conflagrations with military efficiency. Careful planning, new techniques of containment and, most important, new technologies of firefighting, on the ground and in the air had begun, by late Tuesday and early Wednesday, to gain the advantage. Countless residents, having learned the lessons of 1993, had long since cleared adjacent zones of flammable brush--and kept them cleared. They had also roofed or re-roofed their homes--with safety uppermost in mind. Communications among a score of agencies and jurisdictions showed new sophistication; the political response from county officials, Gov. Pete Wilson and President Bill Clinton was effective, appropriate and, given the coming elections, tastefully understated.

No, it was not 1993 all over again, with its traffic-jammed fire trucks, its uncertain firefighting strategies, its constant suggestion of politics. This was something else entirely--something precise, contained, coolly responsive. Best of all: There was no apocalyptic howl, as in 1993; no speculations (gloating even) that these fires represented proof positive that Southern California, indeed all California, was in deep, deep trouble. Remember 1993? Remember the incessant effort by media pundits to construe those fires as burning more than the canyons of Malibu: as burning up the whole idea of California as a compelling American dream. This time around there was no such response. These were fires, pure and simple--not apocalyptic judgments.

What does the absence of such dire rhetoric signify? The more limited nature of the catastrophe, first of all--though one must never minimize the homes lost or the trauma suffered by Jensen and the Los Angeles city firefighters who were seriously burned. Nor did these fires follow a major riot and earthquake--which compounded the temptation to go apocalyptic in 1993. Not only was the catastrophe more limited this time, it was so largely because it was more skillfully fought--from both the human and the technological perspective.

The very technology evident in the new firefighting techniques, in fact, offers a compelling paradigm of Southern California in its post-defense-era reconstruction. Technologies and deployment strategies intended initially for war have now been successfully shifted to peacetime purposes in almost a set piece of technology transfer--virtually a symbol of the new economy.

More important, Southern Californians are growing up, learning to live more appropriately with their environment and its limitations. The disasters could have been worse, but people have pro-actively been taking care of themselves, based on a new respect for the continuing realities of fire, flood and earthquakes in the Southland. Limitation, even tragedy, is becoming part of the psychological landscape of the region; and the coming of age demonstrated so dramatically in the successful firefighting, is conferring new self-respect on Southern California and winning the respect (begrudging perhaps) of those who seem to wish to pounce on every difficulty in this region with incredible glee.

The fact that the San Diego County fire remains of suspicious origin and is under investigation only reinforces this awareness. There will always be trouble in paradise. Yet trouble can be contained--like a raging fire.

What if the model of successful firefighting this time around were to be extended into other areas? Why couldn’t this new maturity, this new dialogue with limitation and prevention, be extended into eduction, transportation, housing, crime-prevention, getting a pro football team? Isn’t it encouraging to see Southern California successfully coping at its point of greatest vulnerability--fire? Cannot there be other transfers of technologies and skills to other areas of weakness and dysfunction?

Southern California, in other words, has learned in these recent fires that human will and effort can make a difference. Three short years ago, we were not so sure. Then, we seemed caught in a downward vortex for which riot, earthquake, fire and flood seemed to be both cause and symbol. Not today. Our economy, for one thing, is strengthening. We are growing wiser. Homes can be lost--and so can Southern California. But it will not happen--or at least for the moment we can have this hope.

Who knows what fearsome challenges lie ahead. Flames may once again spark to life on brush-laden canyons too close to housing. Floods will once again pour down onto the plain. And the earth will tremble and shake with terrifying shudders and roars. But this will not be the end of Southern California. This will only be the beginning of our new maturity.

Gone are the days of sloppy, headlong use. Gone is the vast prodigality of a wasteful era. The hope that now energizes us is better than the naive, unearned optimism with which we built and consumed. Now is the time for consensus born of realistic insight, for pro-action in the face of inevitable adversity, for the tragic sense of life.

We won this one. And in so doing, we began to win a much larger contest--the struggle for California itself.