Perspective: When family is forced to evacuate

“Do you think the whole city will burn down?”
I text messaged these words to my boyfriend last night, scared that the Southern California fires would consume all of San Diego County.
I don’t have a working TV while I’m at school, so the only news I get about the fires in San Diego comes from my boyfriend, who lives a few miles away from my childhood home in Chula Vista, a city in southeast San Diego.
My own parents don’t call me to give me updates, so I’ve resorted to calling them every hour.
As the Harris fire, a wildfire in southeast San Diego, threatened the communities near my home, my sisters fled on a voluntary evacuation.
This was the third time my older sister evacuated. At 2 a.m. Monday, the Colorado Hills fire forced her out of her own home in San Marcos, and at 6:30 a.m., reverse 911 phone calls in Poway forced her out of her boyfriend’s parents’ home.
My parents stayed in our home, watching from their bedroom window as the flames atop San Miguel Mountain inched closer and closer.
“I’m scared my house is going to burn down,” I cried to my boyfriend Monday night.
“Just be happy you aren’t here,” he told me.
I’m not.
If the fires consume all of Southern California, where will my family go?
It’s easy to say all of my family will be OK, but Mother Nature doesn’t pick and choose whom she’ll destroy and how much damage she’ll cause.
I’ve been at SJSU for four years, but it has never felt like home. To me, San Diego will always be my home.
And as the fires inch farther west, all I can think about is how much longer it will take before my beloved city turns to ash.