EDITOR’S NOTE | By Bret Bradigan

OJAI SACRALIZED

The fire finally over, but new sense of community still glowing.

Fire is a wildly destructive force, but it has its uses. From its heat, metals are forged; wounds are cauterized, glass art is blown and communities are drawn closer together.

The Thomas Fire began December 4 of last year, burning more than 1,000 homes, 4,400 square miles and caused more than 100,000 people (including all of us in Ojai) to be evacuated, before it was contained on January 12. Unless you were paying close attention, it may have eluded your attention that the fire wasn’t officially declared over by the Forest Service until June 1 . The fire was still burning six months after it first ignited near Thomas Aquinas College. Much of our backcountry remains a charred wasteland.

The tragic deaths of 21 people in the fire-related mudslides in neighboring Montecito will be remembered for generations. It’s a reminder that we in Ojai got off easy. People say “could be worse” as a classic cliché because it’s eternally true.

Another cliché we often hear is “blood is thicker than water.” I thought it meant that family ties were stronger than friendships. But I was wrong. The full quote is “the blood of the sacrament is thicker than the water of the womb.” That’s exactly the opposite meaning. It reminds me of the deep sense of community values we shared in Ojai from the fire and its aftermath. The fire was our sacrament.

During those December days of creeping filter-masked anxiety and apocalyptic dread, we could not help but feel the sturdy bonds of community. It was our salvation.

We all have our first- and second-hand stories about near-escapes and tragic losses, of heroism ordinary and extraordinary. Those stories are the connective tissue of our human experience. They bring us together.

The typical divisions of the day — the virulence of the anti-STR campaigns, the divisive presidential election, the gas-leaf blowing and anti-tourism sentiment growing were all pushed aside for what really mattered; our care and concern toward each other.

It was a tough time to be in business in Ojai; it was basically a ghost town. Those dark days — more than a week without postal service, for example — it felt like the end of one world, with complete uncertainty about what was next. Many thanks to Jeremy and Liz Haffner for hosting meetings at Azu. It was helpful, even hopeful to come together in our shared tragedy.

It’d be a shame if we forgot that what unites us is so much more important than what divides us. We are bound to relapse as we return to our routines, but for those who lived through that trying time, there’s a part of us that remembers that camaraderie, that sense of belonging. We’ll go back to bickering, as any family does – whether the family was formed by the blood of the sacrament or the water of the womb. The Thomas Fire taught us that when it matters most, we can count on each other.