Columnist Susan Snyder: Sifting through the fire’s ashes

Monday, Nov. 3, 2003 | 8:31 a.m.

Sunshine had returned to the San Bernardino Valley on Sunday morning.

It had been up less than an hour when I stepped onto the patio of Carole's house in Rancho Cucamonga. The home of my partner's sister-in-law had been spared by the worst wildfires in California history.

Two pie tins sat near the door. The neighborhood possums had consumed all of the kibble but only a few chunks of cantaloupe set out the previous night. The last family of marsupials were greedy melon-eaters. This new clan evidently was more discerning.

Finches with bright yellow bellies or flame-red heads flitted and twittered in the dewy branches overhead.

This moment on this kind of morning is my favorite part of any California visit. Solvang, San Francisco, San Diego -- none compare to the pleasure of knowing this secret, private place awaits with a cool breeze and cup of coffee.

It's part lawn, part old European garden and all Carole. She knows the name and preferences of every tree, flower, plant and shrub. She knows which seeds will bring the birds she favors, where to hang them and in what.

A pair of flip-flops sit just outside the door next to the possums' plates -- an open invitation to explore, even if you left your shoes upstairs.

Liquid amber maple trees with a few leaves just turning to gold stood against the fence along with olive trees, alders and some South African tree I could not name.

The lush beds below burst with color and diversity. What's left of the canna lily trumpets reached skyward, while flowers exploded in purples, pinks crimson and white around all sides. Petunias, impatiens, roses -- those are the ones I can name. But there are so many more.

I curled up in one of the enormous patio chairs with a cup of strong coffee, watched a hummingbird make fast work of a bush covered with tiny purple blossoms and tried to imagine the picture Carole had described.

The previous weekend an inches-thick layer of ash covered everything, while the nearby mountains burned out of control.

"I hosed it off twice, but it was all over everything," she said. "The ash floated down in chunks the size of half dollars."

It was hard to imagine. Everything seemed clean and bright, now.

But reality lingered in a light coating of ash floating atop the possums' water bowl. The caustic smell of smoke clung stubbornly to the crisp morning air.

It wasn't the comforting, wood-burning smell that signals sweater weather. It was the sinister, bitter smell of arson and carelessness.

A hawk -- sharp-shinned, I think -- darted overhead with a cackling knot of crows in close pursuit. They dive-bombed the raptor, which sought refuge on the roof for a few minutes then flew off.

The smoke rolled over our city, and we saw the people on television pluck mementos from charred rubble. We measured the magnitude of distant wildfires in numbers of people dead, numbers of homes destroyed, numbers of acres burned.

But we can never fully embrace the void. How do we measure the loss of these special sanctuaries and private places?

Perhaps we can't.

Perhaps we can only be grateful when the places spared are the ones special to us.