Fire and water.

My grandmother was oft heard quoting Aesop, "...fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters."  Even as a small child I got the gist of what she was saying.  However, growing up in Liverpool, I didn't think I was in imminent danger of burning up, or being washed away.  Fire is mostly great; a cozy wood burning stove, a candlelit dinner, toasting s'mores round a fire-pit.  Better still, chestnuts.  Good servant stuff.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, now I live in tinderbox dry California and wildfires happen.  The bad master stuff.
One week ago, I was going about life in a normal manner, e.g., picking Cabernet franc.  Exactly one week later things are not quite normal.  In fact, I'd go as far as to say they are abnormal.  I went to bed last Sunday night ignorant to the fact that there was a wildfire raging just a few miles from here.  Without going into detail, except to say that what ensued was quite dramatic, at 3.45 a.m Monday morning Vinomaker and I had to quickly evacuate Vinoland.  I grabbed Vinodog 2, my passport, my green card, my wedding ring, my rosary beads (from the Vatican) and my purse - and I was gone! We returned about 7 hours later.  Everything just as we'd left it, but now covered in a grey and black layer of ash.
Six days later, we still have no power, but thank God we have everything else.  In an area just about 3 miles from Vinoland, an entire street is gone.  I don't have that voyeur-bone in my body that some folks have.  People suffering horrible loses are not there for my entertainment.  I would want to grieve the loss of a home, a pet, or all of my possessions in private.  Yes, I'm curious, but this cat doesn't have nine lives.  I'll survive without witnessing, first hand, the misery of others.
Speaking with neighbours who have been in this area since the early 60s, I have learned that wildfires ravage this area about once every 20 years.  One neighbour recalled for me the calamitous fire of 1964, the year he moved to Coombsville.  And an even more destructive conflagration in 1981.  So, it seems, we were overdue.  Everything in life is cyclical and that includes wildfires.  It's just that now there are more people and homes in the way of Mother Nature (when she takes it upon herself to do a little housekeeping).  And vineyards.
Last winters heavy rains only exacerbated the intensity of these wildfires, as there is plenty of fuel to keep them stoked.  The charred hillside, from where I took this photograph, is now mostly clear of brush and shrubs, a lot of the larger trees are blackened but still standing.  Just like the neighbourhood itself: a little singed, but mostly unscathed.  I wish I could say the same for all Napans.  Fuel for thought.