The "Tea" fire: Friday update

Fire Status •2,000 – 2,500 acres burned •Approximately 100 homes damaged or destroyed •5,446 homes evacuated •More than 500 firefighters •10 injuries from smoke inhalation •3 burn injuries

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It would be easy, perhaps, to discount the destruction here because the fire has burned principally in what news outlets are terming "ritzy" or "tony" Montecito, and insist on describing the neighborhood by citing Oprah, Rob Lowe and Michael Douglas among other famous residents. Yes, it's true that $15 million homes have burned to the ground, and I can hear some of you thinking "Well, so what? They're rich. They can rebuild. It's not like New Orleans."

I can't think about it that way. To lose a home is devastating. A home isn't just a house, a shell. If you've lived well, you've invested yourself in every nook and cranny of your home. A home is made of memories. It holds the deepest part of you. It holds things you care about that, when they are gone, are gone forever. Of course it's true that people are more important than things. Things, they say, can be replaced. But not always.

Our house in Quoque, New York burned twelve years ago. The original house was a gem, lovingly built in the mid-60s. Robert and I had been involved in every detail with the architects and contractor. The rebuilding did not engage in the same way. The "new" house never quite came to life. How could it? The "old" house had known thirty years of family living. That could not be reproduced.

Losing a home can cause deep psychological, as well as physical, dislocation. This is true for people who've lost their home through fire, flood, a freakish tornado touchdown on the open plain — or foreclosure. It is, for people who go through it, something like a death.

So please, if you read that some of the houses destroyed in Montecito were pricey, don't be dismissive. People here today are suffering. The people who lived in those homes are real people, and their feelings are as real as yours or mine.

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Helicopter pilots dropping water on the fire today are saying that the estimate of "100 structures damaged or destroyed" is way too conservative.