Climate change fueled the burning of our family’s home. Why California needs action now

I was driving home to Sacramento from the Bay Area one late night in 2017 when my cousin called me and told me there were burning embers from nearby wildfires falling by our grandmother’s house in Napa Valley. We had recently moved my grandmother out of that house and into a residential care facility – but I knew that my brother was sleeping in her old house that night. And no one could get in touch with him.

My grandmother’s house had been threatened by wildfires before. Fortunately, over the four decades of her living in it, it had never once been damaged. I spent much of my youth moving around to different towns, so her house served as my home base – the center of gravity for my scattered family’s orbit.

My brother lived, thankfully, but the night still ended in tragedy. And sadly, because of climate change, Californians are more likely to lose their homes to disaster than in the past. The good news is we can still prevent a worst-case scenario.

When my brother finally woke up, he woke up choking on smoke. He walked out to the deck and was faced with a wall of flames surrounding the house. A fire truck had just pulled into the driveway. He narrowly escaped the house with nothing other than his life. We had a long and harried night of hoping for news that he was okay before he found his way to a phone.

The drive into Napa looked like Armageddon when I went to pick up my brother. The sky was black even though the sun was out, and ash fell like snow. Days later, once the roads reopened, we went back to my grandmother’s house. It had been completely destroyed. The ground was still hot as we donned face masks and sifted through the rubble of what was left. We lost things that will never be replaced: family immigration papers from Italy; jewelry that had been passed down through generations; linens hand-embroidered by my great-grandmother.

That fire – the October 2017 Atlas Fire – burned nearly 52,000 acres in northern California and killed six people. The following year, the Camp Fire decimated the town of Paradise, and this year, the Kincade Fire blazed through nearby Sonoma County. We are clearly in the midst of a crisis. Fifteen of California’s 20 largest wildfires in our state’s recorded history have burned during the 21st Century. Our fire season now extends later in the year – some call it year-round – and the fires are becoming more unpredictable and uncontrollable.

These changes all point to one common factor: the climate crisis. Higher temperatures, earlier snowmelt, drier vegetation caused by drought and longer fire seasons – all linked to and exacerbated by climate change – are increasing the frequency, duration and devastation of wildfires.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that if we want to avoid the worst effects of climate chaos, we must stop putting more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere than we can take out by 2050.

California and other states across the country have committed to achieving this goal on the state level, but we need more. We must immediately begin to transition our entire nation to a 100 percent clean energy economy. Otherwise, hotter and drier weather created by our changing climate will continue to lengthen the time of year my community is most vulnerable to wildfires, while making these wildfires even deadlier.

I still mourn what we lost in the Atlas Fire. During each time of uncertainty in my life, my grandmother’s house was my safe harbor – a true home for my heart. And now, three years after its collapse, I feel untethered.

I’ve been periodically returning to the lot where the house once stood to collect pieces of pottery and glass from the rubble. I am making mosaic flower pots from what is left. I am practicing patience and cultivating hope: that we can be brave enough to take action and to protect this planet for the next generation.

This story was originally published December 28, 2019 at 5:00 AM.