Memories of another fire

Posted in Mom Stuff
by besttech

By Amy

SILICON VALLEY MOMS BLOG

My heart goes out to the people in the Santa Cruz mountains whose homes have been destroyed by the wildfire there.

When I first heard of the fire, it immediately brought back memories of the huge blaze that charred nearly 14,000 acres of those very same hills in the area near Lexington Reservoir back in 1985.

Back then, the fire blazed for four days and nights, and all through that summer it seemed as if it was all anyone ever talked about. Firefighters from all over California were camped out on the front lawn of Los Gatos High School. The highway through the mountains was closed. You could smell the smoke.

That summer, as I was about to begin my senior year of high school, I was driving south on Highway 17 towards Los Gatos on my way home from my summer job at M/A-COM on Old Oakland Road in San Jose. There was a hot wind blowing, it was a sticky day. I’d gotten off early because things were quiet and I’d finished my work. Normally I’d have been on the bus, but my mom had loaned me the car that day (bliss). Corey Hart’s “Never Surrender” was on the radio; I remember this because the lyrics just seemed to fit as I looked up towards the hills and could actually see the orange flames at the top of the ridge just west of the highway. Only then did I understand the scale of the thing.

For years afterwards, every time I drove to and from Santa Cruz, my eyes were inevitably drawn towards the hillside, bare and blackened, then later bursting with new growth. I think it was just last year I noted that the trees had finally grown back and it was now difficult to tell where that fire had been.

I’m sure those who lived through it know exactly where it was. If your home is near the summit fire today, or anywhere near its path, I’m sure you aren’t reading this, but we are rooting for you. Stay safe.

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This an original post from the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, http://www.svmoms.com … where Amy writes about what it’s really like to move away from the Center of the Universe from her new vantage point in Gloucestershire, England.