Can I get some good thoughts for my mom, please? She's evacuated due to fires in CA.

[Hekate]

61. Yes, I live on the Central Coast in Ventura....

Was in Goleta, next door to Santa Barbara, for a very long time. It really is lovely, but the issue with the fires is getting so much worse. We no sooner moved to Ventura that we had to evacuate due to the 2017 Thomas Fire — our neighborhood was spared, but the hills all around were charred and many of the homes we had looked at that spring and summer burned to the ground.

It used to be that there was about a 30-year window after a big burn (that’s just my guesstimation based on Santa Barbara County history) — it took about that long for the fuel load to build up again. Looking at it that way, we were 70 when we bought this house, and in decades past I would have said we dodged a bullet with the Thomas Fire and could expect to live here peacefully until our late 90s or something. By now we know there is no window for rebuilding and not much for regrowth: it’s all fuel, all the time.

It makes me sad. This is full-on climate change, and so many people are suffering right now, including our friends at DU.