The Floriston fire rolled in like an uninvited relative who doesn't text ahead, and suddenly my biggest life decision was which charging cable to grab on the way out the door.
Wildfire season in California has become the world's worst subscription service—nobody remembers signing up, but the bills keep coming.
For those blissfully unaware, Floriston is one of those tiny Sierra foothill communities wedged near the Nevada line, the kind of place you drive past and assume is just a gas station with opinions.
Then a fire starts, the wind does its chaotic little dance, and boom—everyone's a refugee with a Yeti cooler and a dog that refuses to get in the car.
Here's the part that gets me: we've turned disaster preparedness into a personality trait.
My neighbor has a go-bag that could survive the apocalypse, a satellite phone, and three backup generators.
I have a reusable Trader Joe's bag with a phone charger and a vague sense of dread.
Guess which one of us looked like a genius at 2 a.m.
The evacuation warnings ping your phone in that cheerful emergency-alert tone, like a smoke detector deciding to be helpful at the worst possible moment.
You're supposed to stay calm and follow the checklist.
Instead you're standing in your kitchen wondering if the sourdough starter counts as a family member.
Everyone in a 20-mile radius suddenly remembers they own a car, and the two-lane road out of town becomes a slow-motion parade of panic.
People honking like the fire cares about right-of-way.
Buddy, the flames do not have a driver's license.
The wildland-urban interface is a fancy phrase meaning "we built houses in a tinderbox and acted surprised when it sparked." Insurance companies are quietly ghosting entire zip codes.
Homeowners are stuck between "rebuild" and "why would anyone rebuild here." It's a genuinely grim math problem that nobody in a nice suit wants to solve on camera.
Not doomscrolling the fire map at 3 a.m., which I absolutely did.
And for the love of all that is holy, don't wait for a knock on the door if the sky is orange and the air tastes like a campfire you didn't build.
Opinion: We keep treating each wildfire like a shocking twist instead of a rerun we've all memorized.
Final Thoughts
Until the grown-ups fix the actual problem—land management, climate, housing policy, take your pick—the best we can do is prep like adults and stop pretending this is anybody else's emergency.