The fires ravaging Southern California are a testament “to always being ready to evacuate, and never assume you’ll be back,” said former Iolan Webb Mechling.
Webb and his wife, former Iolan Dusti Nichols, and their three children live in Oxnard, Calif., a bustling metropolis in Ventura County, where the fires have consumed more than 100,000 acres and hundreds of structures.
So far, the Santa Ana winds have favored their community of more than 200,000. The Mechlings moved to Oxnard two years ago from Ventura. Many of the homes in their former neighborhood were taken by the fires.
“They’re gone,” Webb said.
“Our son’s best friend lost his home. In fact, he’s over here now,” Webb said in a phone conversation Thursday afternoon.
Oxnard is serving as a staging point for rescue operations, Mechling said.
Free breakfasts and lunches are being provided at area schools, which have been closed since Tuesday. Webb noted coordinating volunteer efforts has been a challenge.
“At this point there’s no central site to drop off food or clothing. Thousands are at the fairgrounds as a means of temporary housing,” he said.
Southern California has been home for the Mechling family since 2004. Dusti teaches fourth grade in Ventura and Webb is a salesman for Becton Dickinson, which manufactures hospital and lab supplies. “We love it here,” Webb said, taking a philosophical approach to living in an area prone to natural disasters such as fires and earthquakes.
“It’s no different than living in Kansas or Missouri and facing the risk of a tornado,” he said. “You never think it’s going to happen to you, but it definitely can.”
Webb said he and Dusti are “decently ready,” in case they have to evacuate. Dusti said they have scanned the photos from their wedding album onto a disk. They have yet to prepare a box with critical items that they can take at a moment’s notice.
The immediacy of these fires have brought that lesson home.
“There are people who left their homes in their pajamas, and that’s all they have left,” Dusti said.
The fires have also made the Mechlings realize that their dream location maybe isn’t so ideal after all.
“Like so many people, we’ve always wanted to live in the hills,” Webb said. But those wooded locations perched high above the cities proved to be a veritable tinderbox this week.
“That’s where the old Venturians have lived all their lives,” Webb said. “There were beautiful homes up there.”
“For us, that dream’s gone,” he said. “But that’s OK.”
PHOTO: Dusti and Webb Mechling and their children, Brigham, 9, Gracen, 11, and Piper, 4.
