As I write, the Carr fire in Northern California -- a blaze that at its peak had characteristics that seemed almost apocalyptic -- has diminished, but still remains a significant threat to some communities.
Shruti Swamy, a woman of Indian extraction who says she grew up in the woods of Northern California (but now lives in San Francisco), has a story in the Summer 2018 edition of the Paris Review entitled "A House is a Body." It's about a woman and her sick child living in a region where "rain had not come for months and months." What has come instead is a fire.