I went for a motorcycle ride this weekend. I made it up to Alice’s— a spot where 35 meets 84 in La Honda. It’s a spot frequented with Motorcyclists and hot rod enthusiasts on the weekends. Since this was the first week in many without any smoke, it was packed with riders.

It was remarkable how talkative everyone was. I think we’re all sort of reaching a critical point of isolation where we are seeking out conversation with anyone we can find. I met a cafe racing riding Italian motorcycle mechanic who told me about his shop in San Jose. I met two men who had been a couple for 25 years and rode Harleys together up and down the coast. And I met an unassuming software engineer who had lived in the mountains near Pescadero for 25 years.

In the recent weeks, two large fire complexes sprung up in the Bay Area. The SCU complex in east San Jose near and on Mt. Hamilton and the CZU complex on the western side of the peninsula.

For the sake of privacy, I’m going to rename the man from Pescadero. Let’s call him Jim. The story he told me was haunting and at the same time uplifting.

Jim grew up in the bay. He made a decent amount of money during the mid 90s and bought some land just off highway 9. He lives three miles down a dirt road that gets so muddy in the winter time, the only way to reach his house is with a 4x4 truck. He lives there with a teenage daughter and his wife.

The fires this year were an unusual one. In the past, Bay Area fires were largely driven by electrical wires falling on dry grasslands that hadn’t been cleared during a particularly windy day. The wind acts to accelerate the spread of the fire. In the case of the Napa fire a few years ago, folks barely had time to jump into their pools to escape the flames.

This time was different. A freak dry thunderstorm awoke many of us to a light show we hadn’t seen the likes of since the spate of fire works in early June. Jim awoke that night in a panic. “We’re fucked” he told his wife.

For years, the western side of the peninsula towards Santa Cruz has been protected by the damp rain shadow and the persistent Northern California fog. If you’ve ever spent time hiking out there, you’ll know how exceedingly damp the ground gets.

This year however, the lighting with no rain set up an area that has not seen a major fire in decades up for one of the worst catastrophes the region has encountered in years.

The CZU fire started almost immediately following the lighting. By afternoon, 20 smaller fires had merged together to make up the majority of the mass we saw. However, unlike the Napa fire of years past, this fire was slow. It inched along, getting at most a few feet per day. As it burned it began to engulf homes and cut a swath of destruction all the way to the beach. Hundreds of old growth redwoods in Big Basin burned.

“We’re going to lose the house, we need to leave now” Jims wife told him.

He was reluctant to leave, however. He thought about his daughter— who at 16 was forced to endure a year of isolation away from her friends due to COVID-19. He couldn’t bare the thought of her losing even more this year.

To Jim, this year had been one thing out of his control after another, and while this fire did seem like a huge challenge, it wasn’t impossible to deal with. The progression of the fire wall was slow. Little wind meant that they had time to plan— time to prepare. He also had the support of dozens of his neighbors, all of whom would also lose their homes and the lives they had built in the mountains.

Instead of despairing and fleeing— Jim decided he would try and do what he could to save his house and neighborhood.

He put together a small team of neighbors and began cutting firebreaks across their respective properties. With two bulldozers and a half dozen men with chain saws they cut a break across the property nearest to the fire. If they could hold that bulwark they might be okay.

They agreed to use their combined water tanks to hold the line at this neighbors house. The combined water source totaled a quarter million gallons. Every hour for three days while the fire raged, one of them would walk the firebreaks with a hydrant and douse the land on both sides. They kept at it, day after day, hour after hour, working in shifts to support their neighbor. The fire crept closer and closer. At one point it came all the way up to the edge of this linchpin house.