What Happened

All rightie… You’ve met my friend Eddie:

In mid-November of last year, a huge fire hit the mountains behind his house. It was all over the news. More than 500 homes were destroyed or severely damaged.

His was one of them.

He’d been at my house for a barbecue and a movie until about 10:40 PM or so. As he got closer to home, he saw the smoke. The wind was crazy, but being the kind of guy he is, when he couldn’t drive all the way up to his house, he parked his car and walked…figuring his house was probably already gone.

It wasn’t.

The fire department wasn’t there yet, but several yards were on fire, fanned by super-high winds. Eddie got out his garden hose. If it wasn’t for his quick action, his neighbor’s house might have gone up. He put out some debris that was scorching upward, licking their eaves.

On the other side of his house, he has a rather large collection of vintage car parts for 60s Corvettes and Camaros. A pile of tires had caught fire.

He tried to put it out but then his other neighbor’s house became fully engulfed. (The fire was so hot, aluminum wheels, intake manifolds and heads were reduced to puddles while fiberglass hoods became bizarre piles of fuzz.) There was no stopping this blaze. He ran inside his house and grabbed a few things as the fire department arrived.

They almost didn’t let him take his other car that was in the garage (a ’66 Corvette [the coupe version of the convertible I have]), but there was no way he would’ve left that car there. When he drove away, he figured it’d be the last time he’d see home sweet home.

We heard from him around 2AM. He called to tell us that he was okay, but that his house was gone.

The next morning, we learned that his house wasn’t entirely gone… Well, yeah it was, but no it wasn’t.

I drove out there to see if I could help. This is my car parked across the street from his house. Notice how utterly barren those mountains are. In 2003 when a blaze came up to my back fence, there were still a few bits of green and brown on my back hill. This fire was far more ruthless.

Eddie needed help now, not next week and I was glad to oblige.

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