Evacuation Retrospective

Penned July 30, 2021

Lightning sparked a fire near our place last summer. When the Bear Fire (later The North Complex Fire) threatened homes just south of ours, some friends were forced to flee. They came—three people, a cat, and a dog in heat—and stayed in our trailer, as the virus closed the house to guests. We shared meals outside in sweet fellowship, but when the smoke became unbreathable, we moved to our indoor spaces. As the fire crept closer, they helped us prepare to evacuate in our own turn. With smoke and candling trees on the mountains opposite the house, terror dulled my wits, slowed my work. Then the wind changed driving death and destruction away from us, downwind. Firefighters defended and saved our friends’ home. We didn’t evacuate.

Since then, we’ve renewed our efforts to harden our home against wildfire, and especially last month, when lightning started fires in the forest just a few miles downwind (the Beckworth Complex).

Then a small fire appeared upwind—the Dixie. As it grew and approached, I cleared more combustibles away from buildings, and we packed up underwear, passports, photos and guitars.

I neared the end of my planned debris clearing Thursday afternoon, 7/22, watching the smoke clouds rise and gauging the fire’s approach by watching the treetops to see wind speed and direction. I wondered if finishing meant we were going. Minutes later, a pickup pulled in, last summer’s evacuee guest, asking “How can I help?” I had barely hugged him when my phone screamed our evacuation order, urgently bypassing the usual warning. Two more friends appeared right behind, ready to help us pack and load.

Our granddaughters, renting our trailer, proved more ready than we, and joined in our scramble. Even with all this help, we needed an hour and a half to roll out, including a jump start to my truck. We rolled toward relative safety along our own dear road through two law-enforcement check points, helicopters whirling their dripping buckets just overhead: three vehicles, four adults, and three dogs.

A few days and three host families later, we’ve found refuge in the Bay Area. This is God’s kindness. We cling to what routines we can in this new, unfamiliar setting, wondering when we can go home, and what we may find. This is trouble, and God is with us: God gave me courage in recent weeks, delivering me from the terror paralysis that sandbagged me last year; he gave me strength to finish the cleanup.

Thank God, too, for his promises. Sharon and the two granddaughters staying with us have been memorizing a Scripture passage fitting this moment:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

and hope does not put us to shame,

because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

(Rom 5:1-6 ESV)

This is the right time. We are weak; God has given us strength through others. We were in danger; God has brought us to safety.

We have run out of cope; God has sent help—through family, medical workers, friends, and especially these two fine young women who have evacuated with us. We’ve accepted lots of help that we need very much.

God loves evacuees who are far from home. Our home, as we continually peruse the fire reports, still stood. Some did not.

What are we to make of those displaced families’ losses? We must hope farther out: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14) How? The Gospel of Jesus Christ stands as an outpost of that city, an evacuation center. John the Baptist, as he sounded the alarm, challenged some tourists, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” You’re only rubbernecking, assured you’ll sleep tonight in your warm bed in the city. It’ll burn there. All who come here in earnest prove it by staying. Pass out water bottles and blankets. Here alone can you find refuge. Search your hearts, but hurry!

Death and loss, seen downwind, are no less sure than flames, death and loss closing in upwind. We have time to pack. Like John’s earnest evacuees, we don’t deserve it. Whenever Sharon and I get back to our place in Quincy, it will be different. More importantly, we’ll treasure it more as an outpost of the city that is to come. Even now, Christ alone is our evacuation center.

David A Covington