Saugus, California

It’s the middle of February. The sky is a dull gray and the air is laced with the scent of impending rain. The low hills to the East are dotted with dark green shrubbery, though by summer, they will be blanketed in dry, straw-colored kindling.

Saugus is known for its fires, fires that begin as glowing embers at the side of the road then swell to enormous infernos within minutes, consuming hundreds of acres by the day’s end. The past three years we have seen half a dozen of these hellish conflagrations, which have charred nearly every mountain in every direction as far as the eye can see. When they burn, the sky is russet-colored, and the air is choked with ash that drifts lazily to earth like flakes of snow. At night, the red glow of the flames can be seen on the mountaintops and we all wonder how long it will last this time.

What makes Saugus so unique? I suppose it is the way we all band together every summer on cue. During the rest of the year we hardly notice one another, racing by in our cars on the way to soccer practices or the grocery store or church, eyes straight ahead, barely making eye contact. But in summer, Saugus residents lift their eyes from their own shoes and smile at one another. When homes are threatened by a wall of fire racing in their direction, people come out of the wood work to help, loading boxes into cars, hosing down roofs, mowing down dry grass. Groups of otherwise strangers cook food, bake bread, pack lunches and descend like angels upon Central Park where the firemen set up base. White tents scattered on acres of green lawn are a stark contrast to the exhausted men dressed in heavy yellow uniforms caked in black soot.
There is a brotherhood between us all, knowing that strangers are risking their lives to protect our homes and our land. So we, though strangers, respond to one another with a little more kindness and little more empathy than we normally would. I suppose it’s one way of saying thanks, to the firemen, to God, and to each other.

But today it is February and the air is chill and damp. There is no threat of fire today. We walk around with our eyes averted trying to get nowhere in a hurry. And deep in the backs of our minds, we are longing for summer.

Laurisa R

Submitted: Monday 1st March 2004, 5:22 PM

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