Looking for signs of the Apocalypse in wildfires

For the past two weeks, I have felt a bit like I’m living in the middle of the Apocalypse, which seems to have landed right here in my home state. By any measure, I have no right to feel this way, since my city has not burned to the ground, I am not living in a tent in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

And yet, UC Merced, my place of employment, shut down its campus—and is keeping it shut until Nov. 26 — because the smoke from the Camp Fire has found its way to our valley and created air so unhealthy that administrators thought it best that students not be required to walk around outside, transitioning from one class to the next. For days, we have been waiting for rain to clear the brown haze choking the Central Valley, even though the rain will possibly also bring catastrophic mudslides to Malibu, where the Woolsey Fire leveled the homes of celebrities, the conflagration oblivious to fame.

Still, those who lost homes in Malibu will probably not be camping in parking lots or staying in overcrowded shelters this weekend. As a result of the fires over the past few weeks, we have been able to view through a magnifying glass the vast income disparity in the Golden State. At the last Census, the average income in Malibu was $133, 869. In Paradise, it was $47, 533. While Kanye West and Kim Kardashian could afford to employ their own firefighting brigade to defend their $60,000,000 home in Malibu—yes, those are seven zeroes—those living in trailer parks in Paradise could do nothing but flee for their lives, and of course many of them were not able to do even that. If the Apocalypse ever does come, the resourceless poor are far less likely to survive it than the obscenely wealthy.

And yet, the press was riveted by stories of famous people losing their homes. Kim Basinger’s house gone! Miley Cyrus left homeless! Neil Young’s place nothing but a charred heap! And while I of course felt compassion for all of them, I also knew that their losses were not really equivalent to the losses of those renters in Paradise who probably did not carry renter’s insurance, or the elderly who will not be able to return to their homes, or the small business owners who have lost their livelihoods. Though nature does not care about income and status, society definitely does, and those who have it will return to normalcy much sooner than those who do not.

Which brings me back to Kanye and Kim. Their promotion team has managed to frame the story of the private firefighters as one about generosity. They were able to save their neighbors’ homes, the story goes, which we should interpret as a stunning example of selflessness. But I cannot help but think that those homes were saved only insomuch as they were contiguous to the West home, and putting out the neighborhood fires was motivated by self-preservation rather than charity. And I could not help but wonder what the West family money could do for the people of Paradise.

I like to believe, though, that most of us act with generosity when confronted with calamity. I like to believe, also, that the human spirit is sustained by resilience and compassion. Even in a political climate of visceral anger, people usually rise to help those who are experiencing unimaginable terror and tragedy, and we have seen this in those who fight the fires for everyone, not just a wealthy few, and in those who rally with support for all victims—the wealthy and the poor. I hold tight to the conviction that when the Apocalypse really does come to California, we will somehow survive it because most Californians, for all the misconceptions about our shallow devotions to yoga and Botox, are strong when we need to be—just like every other human in every other place on Earth.