Yesterday afternoon, while sitting and teaching myself the program “Audacity,” I heard the air tankers in the skies above me.

I live a 5-minute walk from California’s largest freshwater lake, called Clear Lake. The lake is continually used as a resource for water needed to fill the bellies of air tankers and special helicopters used to put out fires. The aircraft swoop down to the lake and special equipment allows each of them to pump water that will then be dumped on fires.

This being the height of the dreaded fire season, the sound of air tankers is a familiar one. When the tankers are flying overhead, it does not have to mean the fire is nearby. The lake covers an immense amount of territory, so dozens of communities are sprawled out across its shores. So unless…

Yes, unless there is the racket of fire engines departing from the firehouse a mile to the southwest of our home, I continue with my life. That is my protocol.

But yesterday my life was interrupted. A huge sinking feeling chilled me as I heard the sirens of those engines. In the distance, miles away, I can hear dozens and dozens of other fire engines. The response is over the top. This is both good and bad. Good because the more equipment & personnel hitting a fire, the better the chances of stopping it. Bad because never in my 17 years in this house have I heard such an immense response. Is the fire even more gigantic than any of the others I have witnessed?

By now Mark has left the back office to discuss the event with me. We turn to the computer, as a group on Facebook has people posting locations of any fire worthy of air tankers. We also go to Watch Duty, an app created to pinpoint on a map of any region where a fire is, when it started, what the emergency response happens to be, and how many acres the fire has consumed.

We discover the fire is 6,000 feet from our house. We look at each other, realizing we need to mobilize. Mark runs off to disassemble his computer, while I do the same. We have several large boxes to put the computers in. Also waiting to go, and close at hand, there are oversized storage containers that have things like business records, the tera drive of 25 years of computer-based documents, cassettes and CDs we’d like to have. I add photo albums to the boxes with the computers. We locate our newly adopted kitty and rudely shove her into a cat carrier. I whistle to Bella, my service dog, so that she knows we might be leaving to go in the car very soon. She starts following me, her tongue out & quite pleased that a road trip is at hand.

I pause. Our friend Sam lives a mile away. He works in Ukiah. His beautiful Cane Corso, Jay Jay, and his four cats are home alone. Sam, even if he leaves work right now, could be miles away from his home should the wind change direction and bring the fire through our community.

I had told him a year ago that if evacuations were ordered by authorities and if I thought they might be right, I’d treat his pets like they were my own. I wasn’t being polite or trying to score good neighbor points. I meant it.

I curse the fact that the van we bought for evacuations can’t be used. The fuel pump went out a week ago & it is not yet repaired. I’m no rocket scientist, but I know simple logistics — I can’t fit our animals, our business records & other boxes, plus our two warm bodies in the Prius, & have room to fit Jay Jay in with us. (To say nothing of four other cats.) His dog is the size of a small refrigerator. I’m perplexed by the challenge.

I call Sam. He explains he knows of the fire. He is upset. His contingency plan has always been that one of three neighbors, all of whom usually are at home, would take the animals. But today those friends are all on the road.

I explain that we can’t fit his animals in our car. But if one of his several vehicles is road-worthy, I could put his pets in that vehicle and let Mark drive alone in our car.

Sam sighs. He is checking through his day pack, and both sets of keys to his Corvette had been tucked into that pack. He thinks he is out of luck.

“Let’s not give up just yet,” I assure him. “I’ll make some calls.”

My friend Sarah is 7 minutes away, in a different part of the world but close at hand due to Highway 29. Several years ago,  I helped her with the animals she boards when a fire raged around the perimeter of her small ranch. I make the call, explaining that I need her and her truck.

“I’m thinking,” she says, which means she might be improving on my idea. I hear her talking to another woman. She comes back on the line. “A Cane Corso, you say? We’re in luck, because my friend Alli has been here with me today. She owns one herself and she is insisting she come along to meet Sam’s dog.”

A very slight pause. “Sam’s dog is mellow, right?”

“Jay Jay’s sweeter than a sleeping toddler,” I reply. “Even with people she doesn’t know.

The three of us rendevous at the local grocery store. I’m in the Prius; they’re in Alli’s oversized SUV. They then follow me over to Sam’s house. Once on his driveway, I call him to explain that I will scale his fence, and enter his home through the open back door. Then we will be putting his pets in Alli’s truck and taking them back over to Sarah’s place.

Meanwhile, both Sam and Alli are getting text messages that the fire has been almost fully contained and will be put out in short order. Sam makes the decision to return the three of us to our normal lives.

“But I can’t believe you went to this much trouble on my account,” says this humble family friend. He never acknowledges that he has been a source of great help to my household over the past 5 years. “Carol, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t thank me – thank my friend Sarah and her buddy Alli.” The cell is passed around and handed back to me. Then Sam admitted, “I hate to say it Carol, but I was crying before you called.” Sam is a man’s man, but he cried when his adult son died two years ago. And his pets are family, just one step down from real children.

After Sam hangs up, Sarah says, “You’ve got to hear this Carol. Alli, please tell her what you just told me.”

Alli then revealed that right before I had called Sarah, she had gotten word that the fire was less than 2 city blocks from her home. She had a choice to make: drive to her house and pick up those treasures that we folks who live in Lake County all have stored in places and boxes quickly accessible to make evacuation easier. Or else  to help Sarah out by coming to help out with Sam’s pets.

I looked at Alli, dumbfounded by the huge heart held by the tiny body of this vibrant, blond-haired woman.

“You are an angel. I don’t know what more to say!”

“Hey, Carol. It wasn’t hard to make the decision. My dog was safe at Sarah’s place. Sam’s Cane Corso needed help. From what Sarah told me about Sam, he’d have done the same for me.”

Alli’s cell gave a chirp, and she got a text stating her home and those homes close to hers had not been affected, except by smoke. The three of us were all smiles at the news. And after some heartfelt “so longs” the two women drove off.

I had tears in my eyes as I made the short trip home.

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