The Bryson Fire’s Uncertainty
The Bryson Fire was reported around 4:40 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, near Encinal Canyon Road and Mulholland Highway. By Thursday night, reports put it at about 200 acres and 0% contained. I’m staring at the numbers, trying to reconcile the precision of the report with the chaos of the fire. The form is calmer than the thing it describes.
Camp Kilpatrick evacuated 38 youths to Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar. The sentence has a destination, a head count, and no room for the inner geography of being moved from one institution to another. I imagine a box somewhere with the number 38; it is mathematically tidy and humanly inadequate.