Fire, fear and a life’s possessions
Editor’s note: When a wildfire erupted May 8 in Griffith Park, flames marched toward a subject familiar to some readers: the Los Feliz house of TV writer Mark B. Perry, featured in a Nov. 16 Home story about his Streamline Moderne residence and its collection of artifacts from classic ocean liners. In that piece, staff writer Lisa Boone asked Perry: What would you save in the event of a fire? Less than six months later, Perry was forced to ask himself that same question. What follows is his account.
WHEN an L.A. Times reporter asked me what I would save in case of a fire, I quickly replied my dog, Blanche, first and my collection of vintage ocean liner home movies second. I suppose I could have given the question more serious consideration, but even then I would not have been prepared for my surprise last week, when the hypothetical suddenly became the very real.
Naturally, my first concern was, in fact, for my dog, but as the fire continued to rage all afternoon, I began to gather things I thought to be irreplaceable and put them by the front door just in case: family photographs, laptop, hard drives, passport and, yes, those liner home movies.
My partner, Mark, stayed in close touch with me throughout the day as I nervously monitored the progress of the fire over the hills, and he came over after work to offer his car for additional space. Around 7 p.m., as neighbors gathered in the street, bringing pizza to the firefighters stationed at the top of the hill and engaging in a bit of gallows humor, it appeared as though the fire was mercifully dying down and the wind was blowing away from us. Mark went home after I assured him that everything seemed fine.
I had never been more wrong.
Within two hours, the fire took a dramatic turn for the worse. I could see flames from my backyard, and the air was choked with smoke and a blizzard of falling ash. I gathered more things, wildly dumping drawers of SS United States silverware into Trader Joe’s bags and saving the Austen Purves birds from my stairwell, my third-grade writing award from Mrs. Hartsell’s class, a box of my childhood school papers and drawings, dog food, my dop kit and ocean liner glassware and china. It was a kind of calm bedlam as I took inventory of my life, my collection and my home. At one point I remembered that all of my ocean liner furnishings were originally made to be fireproof, and I thought: Will this be the ultimate test?
That’s when the TV told me that the fire had turned south and was out of control. It was coming right for me and my neighbors. Earlier I had helped Bill and Jillian save a prized family rug from their dining room. It was Bill who told me from the street about the evacuation. Shortly thereafter, I heard the blood-chilling sound of a passing police car’s PA system: “This is a mandatory evacuation. You must leave now.”
In the chaos of flames, smoke and helicopters and planes swirling and swooping, I ran out back and frantically hosed down the deck, all the while watching the Poseidon-wave of fire coming down the hill. It was impossible to distinguish between the throbbing of the aircraft and the pounding of my heart.
Back inside, I got dear old Blanche and took a look around my home, eerily illuminated by a blackish-orange light. I didn’t know if this would be the last time I’d see this place. As I locked the front door, I heard Clark Gable as Rhett Butler speaking to me, paraphrasing a line from “Gone With the Wind” when Atlanta is burning and the Yankees are coming: “I’m laughing at you, Mark B. Perry, locking the fire out.”
As planes sprayed fire retardant up the ridge, we drove down the hill to a disaster-movie scene of snarled traffic and fleeing residents. A strange calm came over me. I realized that whatever might happen, I was safe. Blanche was safe. My cherished neighbors were safe. And everything else -- my prized liner memorabilia and antiques -- was really just so much stuff.
After an anguished night of wine and TV news, I awoke at Mark’s and immediately turned on the television to hear that things had improved and that no homes had been lost. Those incredibly brave firefighters had engineered a miracle.
I took Blanche to day care and headed back to my house. Looking up the hill, my eyes welled at the glorious sight of my proud old pine tree towering on the ridge and my house nestled safely between my neighbors’. Home. Sweet, sweet home.
The house still smelled smoky, and the backyard was covered in gray ash and blackened tree leaves, but my beloved place had never been more beautiful. A fireman at the top of the hill told me that, believe it or not, this fire was a blessing. It has left us facing relatively little danger of another blaze in what may be a bad season. He also said I almost lost my home, as the fire had approached from two directions, like a pair of scissors closing.
That morning, I went into Mark’s bathroom and my eyes fell on a sign long taped by his mirror -- a sign that never seemed to apply to me. It reads simply, “I live a charmed life.”
Indeed.
