I held tightly to Harley as we rode in the back of the ambulance. His white and copper fur was covered in ash and he was trembling uncontrollably, no doubt just as terrified from our close encounter with death as I was. A paramedic handed me an oxygen mask so I could cleanse my lungs with fresh air. After a deep inhale, I placed the mask on Harley, who was panting hard.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" the friendly EMT asked as she shined a light in my eyes. I squinted and fought the urge to turn my throbbing head away.

"Catalina De la Rosa. But everyone calls me Cat," I said. My voice was hoarse from the smoke.

"Well, Cat, it doesn't look like you sustained any major injuries. But we're going to take you to Central Hospital to be checked out, just in case," she said.

When we got to the emergency room, the medics had to practically tear Harley from my grasp so he could be cared for at the nearby veterinary clinic, assuring me that they would take care of him while I received my checkup. They were kind and comforting, but their words of encouragement didn't prevent the anxiety that consumed me at letting Harley out of my sight.

I was led to an examination room where my blood pressure, heart rate, and respirations were checked. Other than the small, second-degree burn on my right palm, I made out fairly well. I couldn't say the same for the man who had saved me. His wails still haunted me as I sat alone in the small room, waiting for the doctor to sign off on my release.

After a clean bill of health and a prescription for some burn cream, my discharge paperwork was signed. I was almost to the exit of the emergency wing when the doors flew open and a conglomerate of medical professionals rushed inside.

"Out of the way!" someone called.

I pressed against the wall as a gurney rushed past me with an unconscious patient strapped onto it. The horde passed in a blur- there one second, gone the next. Though his eyes were closed, and most of his face was obscured by an oxygen mask, I would recognize the patient anywhere- it was the fireman who had saved my life.

The man looked so different without his khaki fire suit. He'd been stripped down to black work pants and a soft white t-shirt that was spotted with soot and blood. His shirt had been ripped down the center to expose his bare torso, his bronzed and defined abs shining under a thick layer of perspiration.

My heart quickened and hopeful optimism filled me. The man looked fairly unscathed- perhaps he would be okay, after all. But then I glanced down to his left arm and had to stifle a gasp. The skin from his shoulder to his wrist was deep scarlet and shined with angry blisters. I could see the underlying tissue of the man's arm, now exposed after the top layers of skin had been seared away by the scorching flames. The center of the wound was cream-colored and secreting some sort of yellow pus. It was already festering, a repugnant odor of burnt flesh emanating so strongly that I could smell it from several feet away. I held my breath, worried that I might vomit because of the smell. I was no medical professional, but this looked to be a severe injury. A life-threatening injury.

Despite the odor, I took a step forward and eavesdropped on a couple of nurses who were bustling about, trying to run an IV into his uninjured arm and apply antiseptics. Words like respiratory failure, nerve damage, and indefinite coma stood out from their conversation.

No, the fireman wasn't dead. At least not yet. But it was clear the hospital staff weren't optimistic.

The site of the injury became more than I could handle, and like the coward I was, I tucked tail and left the building. Between the smoke inhalation and the overwhelming reminder of what it had cost the man to save my life, I was soon doubled over, vomiting in the landscaping just outside the hospital. I retched repeatedly until my eyes watered, my nose burned, and I was left dry heaving in the bushes.

As I sat on the edge of the curb and rested my clammy forehead against my hands, questions flooded my mind. How long could the man endure the aftermath of such a detrimental injury? Were the doctors just prolonging the inevitable by pumping his unconscious body full of antibiotics? Was there still a chance that he wouldn't survive his injuries after all? The idea of the man lying lifeless on some cold coroner's table caused another bout of vomiting to ensue.

A few minutes later, after I had expelled as much of the bile as I could from my body, I took a deep breath and stumbled across the street to pick up Harley. I was eager to see him and make sure he was okay. Plus, I needed a distraction from the memories of the man's comatose face and my guilty conscience.

Harley greeted me at the front door with a wagging tail and several aggressive licks on the cheek. His crystal blue eyes were full of joy at my arrival. The technician explained that they'd given him oxygen, fluids for dehydration, and a much-needed bath, but that he was otherwise healthy. I thanked them profusely, grateful to them for taking such good care of my best friend, and left the clinic.

As we crossed the vet's parking lot, I sniffed Harley's fur appreciatively, glad the smell of smoke had been scrubbed away. I couldn't say the same for myself. My clothes reeked, I was covered in ash, and my long, dark hair had been singed off in several places, making it severally lopsided. I longed to take a shower, and change clothes. My house, or what remained of it, was only a few blocks away from the hospital, so I decided to see if there was anything I could salvage from the wreckage.

I walked down the block, turned the corner, and gasped as I took in what used to be my neighborhood. Though the fire department had done their job well by taming the vast inferno and stopping it from spreading, there was little they could do for our subdivision. Ninety percent of the homes were completely gone, burned to the ground, nothing remaining but a few cinderblocks. Others were left charred and damaged, blackened skeletons of the buildings that they once were, some of the foundations still smoldering, their wooden embers glowing brightly in the early morning.

As I stared at the ruins before me, I fully appreciated the frailty of human life. Dream homes that had taken years of planning and months of strenuous labor to construct had fall victim to nature's cruel bemusement in an instant. Within a matter of minutes, people's entire lives had been reduced to little more than a pile of rubble.

Many of my neighbors had already returned to the neighborhood, crying and holding one another as they inspected the remnants of their homes. Places of love and security, of memories and warmth, were diminished to rubble in the blink of an eye. Family heirlooms, photographs, and personal effects that could never be replaced were now mounds of ash.

Some families grieved the desecration of their homes, while others mourned for those who had been lost among the flames. Parents who had lost their children; babies who were now orphaned; widows who would never see their lover's face again; individuals who were now the sole survivors of a houseful of loved ones. I had been one of the lucky ones; others hadn't been so fortunate.

I felt gut-wrenching guilt as I watched their sorrow unfold. The people who died were loved and loved others. They perished and left their families to grieve, whereas I was still alive with no one to mourn me. How did that seem fair?

I avoided the tearful eyes of the other survivors as I stepped into the foyer of what used to be my house. My granite entryway table was sturdy and had made it through the fire mostly unscathed. I whispered a silent "thank you" when I found my car keys and wallet intact inside the charred drawer. My Toyota was sitting in the driveway, the fire having been snuffed out before it got that far.

The rest of my house, however, had not been so fortunate. A few scorched beams remained upright, but most of the walls and floors were gone. I bit back the tears that threatened to escape as I looked toward where my bedroom once stood. The walls were burnt black, the floating ash glistening in the early morning sun.

Though I had survived the fire and hadn't lost anyone I loved in the flames, there had, in a way, been a death. My home, my belongings, my way of life- they no longer existed. This house had been my security blanket, my place of comfort and safety. Now that it was gone, I wasn't sure I would ever feel that sense of protection again. The world as I knew it had been completely uprooted, and I didn't know what steps to take to try to return to normalcy.

I sifted through the residue of my house and tried to find anything that remained of my possessions, but there was nothing else left. I watched Harley sniff at the ruins, his tail tucked as he took in the state of our home. He whined beside my leg, and I gave him an appreciative rub. If he hadn't woken me when he did, I could have been a part of this wreckage, counted among the dead.

When I moved to California a decade ago, I quickly learned that wildfires were common in the area. Each autumn, when the leaves dried up and the grass became brittle, most of the state was put on alert. In the beginning, I would lie awake at night, terrified that the fires would make their way to my home, but I was fortunate, and they never did. As the years passed, I began to take these notices with a grain of salt. The fires had rarely come close to the town of Chico. Until now, anyway.

Though the flames were nowhere near my home when I went to bed the previous night, these fires are called "wild" for a reason. They were erratic, unpredictable, and could devastate an entire city within minutes. There had been warnings that the wind might shift, but they were just that- warnings. There was no way to know what would happen.

Last night had proved how wrong I was to take my safety for granted. I was lucky it was only Harley and me in the house; no husband or children to try to safeguard. The heaviness of this statement weighed on me. I had no significant other, no parents, not even friends who I could turn to in a time of need. Other than Harley, I was completely alone.

I had never minded the solitude before. I spent a lot of my time locked in my home office, pouring my heart and soul into my job. My mother had always told me that being a woman, I had to work twice as hard to keep up with the men, and that being a Latina woman would be even more of a challenge.

"You will have to work hard, Mija, but you can succeed if you have the will to," I could still hear her saying. God, I missed her.

I took my mother's words to heart, busting my ass to get into Stanford on a full ride. My perseverance and dedication paid off when I was unanimously chosen as the lead designer with a prestigious architectural company based in Los Angeles that allowed me to work remotely. It was my dream job, and I was determined to prosper at it, even if it meant sacrificing having a personal life to do so.

I convinced myself that I didn't need a man to make me happy. My mother was the happiest woman I'd ever known, and my father left her when I was three years old. If she could go it alone and find contentment, so could I. So, I remained detached, closing off from the rest of the world and making my career my main priority. My work was fulfilling and had always been enough for me- why mess with a good thing?

But my near-death experience made me realize just how isolated I really was. I had distanced myself from friends and family so I could focus on succeeding in a male-dominated field. Now, here I was, a successful architect, but thirty and alone. If I had perished in the fires the previous night, there wasn't a soul alive who would have known or cared.

A tear slipped down my cheek as I filtered through the broken fragments of my home. No, not my home. A home was somewhere where you felt loved, somewhere where you built a life for yourself and made memories with the people closest to you. I had no attachment to this particular building. I didn't care that my possessions were burnt to a crisp, their remnants blowing in the warm September breeze. A life had been lived here, yes, but it was a life that I no longer wanted.

The fire had provided me with a sense of clarity, a yearning to learn who Catalina De la Rosa really was deep down and to discover what she wanted from her life moving forward. Perhaps it was symbolic, in a way, that everything I owned had been destroyed. This was my chance to change my priorities, to make a fresh start. Losing everything that I had- everything that I used to be- was freeing in a devastating, life-shattering way.

With a sense of resolution, I walked away from the rubble that was once my everything. I left the ruins of my neighborhood behind and held my head held high, ready to face whatever challenges this new world had to offer me.

© Dawn Norwell