Calling Dante from the burning California

Every summer, we somehow expect to see Red looking out our windows in Southern California…Only Dante can describe this Inferno…

painting by gronk la tormenta michele roohani

The world witnesses Angelinos running away from wildfires one more time with the very similar images being (again) broadcast all over the world; my friends call me from everywhere to make sure that I am not one of the “evacuees”.

Karen Fratkin los angeles wild fire century city mcihele roohani

Every year’s fire seems more dangerous and more capricious; the picture above is taken from west Los Angeles with the fire mushrooming in the background (the red building on the right is the Die Hard building).

L.A. fire downtown latimes

Just look at the downtown above…

wayne smith ny times los angeles fires 2009

You somehow never get used to the fire’s anger and unpredictability; after 30 summers in california, they still scare the hell out of me!

L.A. fire  latimes

My eyes have been burning from the ashes and smoke all day and I am not even near the fires but my green mood is turning into red because of the wild fires.

Are we ever going to learn how to prepare for inevitable disasters and calamities?…

edouard manet berthe morisot a l’eventail michele roohani

And of course we blissfully close our eyes to the fire dangers for another year and act surprised the following summer when it comes back; if you don’t believe me, read my posts on the subject for the last two years:

This is my post from two years ago.

This one is from last year. I still believe on what I wrote then: Southern California fires are pretty democratic, they hit the mansions and trailer parks and everything in between with the same cruelty… The current definition of a Californian is still “did or did not escape the fires?”

5 thoughts on “Calling Dante from the burning California

  1. Television specializes in broadcasting catastrophic images around the world. For better or worse, those who have tuned out the TV are insulated and live in a different world. In my case the shock is even bigger when I do “see” what is happening.

    The first photo is the scariest, itlooks like an A-bomb has exploded in downtown LA…

  2. Yeh, and how about Hellenic ( “Greek” in bastardized english ) ‘wild’ fires? mother nature just doing her thing !!!!!
    Climate change ? Well, mother nature does have her ‘periods’ , like any woman !

    I hypothesize that mother nature ( i.e. our earth planet)
    does ‘flip’ her axis now and then vis@vis the orientation to sun.

    Thus, why has a ‘mammoth’ been found in Siberia with tropical plant as his/her diet ! Think about it. If the earth ‘flips’ its axial ’tilt’ to exposure to sun ?
    “Equator’ i.e. the most direct exposure to sun’s radiation, could shift to another latitude !
    Melting of the poles very fast. Floods galore. Most religions seem to have this in their stories/ Like the Christian Bible and many ‘native’ ones to ( Albeit, we are all ‘natives’ of earth, here and there).

    OK, as to the green colour:
    The reason , I hypothesize,
    is that we homo sapiens, needed to distinguish that colour in as much
    earth was covered with green plants of various ‘hues’
    where we mainly lived ?

  3. I grew up in Santa Monica (CA) and vividly remember standing in our front yard watching the summer/fall fires crest Topanga Canyon/Malibu ridges . . . and that was a lot more than your 30 years ago, Michele. The only thing that has changed is that upper-class people have insisted on building their gorgeous view homes away from the masses and right in the path of destruction. Nature hasn’t changed; our residential preferences–and short-term memories–have.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *