Columns

As a native Californian, having spent my youth in the southern part of the state, I have seen and lived through two major fires. I remember watching the planes drop orange retardant on the flames burning a hillside only miles from my home.

It’s only just beginning. Hundreds and hundreds of first-person accounts of both tragedy and loss and heroics and generosity will soon grow into thousands of interwoven threads that will become the history of the firestorm of October 2017. With time, the beginning hours of the wind-whipped firebombs and mass evacuations that started with a spark on Oct. 7 and 8 will be joined in historic texts by countless tales of rescue, relief and recovery.

100 years ago – October 11,1917

For awhile most of the current news will, in some way, concern guns and ammunition. It is nearly impossible not to be consumed with the topic, and a divisive, depressing one it is.

Small town life

October already. These colder mornings arouse the desire to cook big, deep dishes of food. Even though some days are still pretty warm, the cooler evenings have me cooking beans and stews for the first time in months.

Enough

Covering big disaster stories like floods and fires always has presented extra challenges to us local journalists. We not only have to report on the disaster — but we have to live through it, too.

This time it was not a hurricane in Florida or Texas; it was not a tsunami in Japan or an earthquake in Mexico. This time it turned out to be the “next time” we all prayed would never happen. This time it was our time; this Red Flag Alert was meant for us.

Looking for a lost pet or a new four-legged friend? See the list of incoming strays and the selection of cats and dogs available for adoption from the Healdsburg Center for Animals.