My nephew has a mother-in-law unit downstairs that walks out to their garden, a beautiful spot; last Monday my sister and her husband were there from Atlanta helping our mom to move in. Mom is great at taking care of herself but at 94 she needs not to be alone anymore. Her young great-grands are looking forward to having someone who’s not their mom helping them with their homework and reading to them, and my niece-in-law is a treasure. So’s her husband.

They also own a house in southern California that is a rental, which I totally get: it is an aphorism here that if you ever sell your house in California you can never afford to move back. So. It had a plumbing problem.

So said nephew left Gram in his wife’s good hands and flew with his folks to fix that thing and my sister was looking forward to a little California in January.

Which is how she found herself taking pictures today as the smoke came closer and they were packing the car and then suddenly the fire itself leaped over the mountain top and came barreling down at them from less than a mile away in the Santa Ana winds as they rushed to evacuate. They were turned back three times because of the spreading flames. Official guidance: Go this way! No, no wait, don’t! Traffic was gridlocked.

It took them four hours to get off that mountain and get the wildfire behind them. But they did it. Our niece, meantime, had booked them a hotel room from the get-go so they had a place to land.

I debated adding one of my sister’s pictures here and thought, nah, the last thing she needs right now is me pestering her for permission, that is just not something she should have to worry about right now.

I don’t know how long it will be before we know if the house is gone–but they are safe. As of this typing there are zero known deaths from the fire. Praise be.