Waiting

This afternoon, our college's marketing director, who also serves as our public information officer (PIO) sent the management group a message over Microsoft Teams: "So we have fires on both sides of campus right now." Off our eastern perimeter, a smallish fire was burning at a storage space (I swear, California has more storage space per capita than anywhere else on earth) and a larger one had ignited off to our west at the local Chevron refinery.  Not to worry, though: The refinery blaze was apparently a truck fire, not likely to ignite the storage tanks.  As of this writing, the smoke seems to have dissipated, and it looks like the fires might be out.

As of this writing. . . 

That's the thing, though: We're basically in the heart of wildfire season right now.  The Dixie Fire northeast of Sacramento has been burning for about a month and is still only about 20% contained.  It's already become the second largest wildfire in California history, and its effects have been seen and felt as far east as Denver, Salt Lake City. . . and Iowa.. . and even New York.  Interestingly, though, folks in my neck of the woods--not especially close to the fire, but certainly closer than Denver, Salt Lake City, et al.--haven't been particularly affected.  Oh, there've certainly been some hazy days, but for thanks to whatever quirks of the jetstream have been holding sway nearby, we really haven't had much in the way of smoky, oppressive air.  So far, despite constant reminders of a "bad" fire season, we've been relatively unscathed--far less. . . scathed?. . .than we've been in recent years.

I'm thankful for that, of course, but every time I take the slightest bit of comfort, I remember that the other shoe--and there's always another shoe--could drop at any moment.  Past performance is not a predictor of future results.  Lack of fire right now ensures nothing about the absence of fire in a week. . . or a day. . . or an hour.  When all it takes to start an inferno is some careless smoker tossing an insufficiently extinguished cigarette into the wrong patch of overly dry grasses. . . . I sometimes find myself seriously wondering how it's possible that the entire state isn't on fire in perpetuity.

Sure, life is unpredictable.  We all walk around under constant threat from random catastrophes over which we exercise no control--even if most such random catastrophes are relatively unlikely: Terrorist attacks, lightning strikes, getting bonked on the head by a meteorite.  But the world still feels so much more precarious now, as the uncontrollable catastrophes just seem to increase in number, and sometimes it seems like we're all just waiting for the big one to hit.