BISHOP, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management Bishop Field Office plans to conduct prescribed fire operations as soon as Feb 24 in areas of the Bodie Hills, northeast of Lee Vining, in Mono County. Pile-burn operations will only be conducted when weather and fuel moistures allow for safe and successful burning.

Prescribed burning helps to reduce hazardous fuels, moderate the potential negative effects of wildland fire, and increase firefighter and public safety. Burning may continue through mid-March depending on weather conditions.

Slash piles, composed of limbs, branches and trees will be burned on approximately 500-acres of BLM-managed public lands in the Sinnamon Cut and Rancheria Springs areas. During burn operations, smoke may be visible from locations throughout the Mono Basin, including Lee Vining, Mono City, Conway Ranch Estates, U.S. Route 395, State Route 120 south of Mono Lake, and State Route 167 north of Mono Lake. All prescribed fire operations are conducted in close coordination with the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District.

More information is available from the BLM Bishop Field Office at 760-872-5000. Updates will be provided by the BLM through the BLM California Fire Information Facebook and X.

Editor’s Note: When a parent is in hospice, there may be wishes to voice things that have been unsaid and for your loved one to somehow return to at least a bit of their old selves, for conversations if nothing else. Dan Caldwell, a 76-year-old retired political science professor who died in January, gave his family that gift during the recent Southern California wildfires. His daughter Beth Caldwell, a Southwestern Law School professor, shared their story with the ABA Journal.

My father, Dan Caldwell, a distinguished professor emeritus at Pepperdine University, was diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer several years ago. We were very close. In fact, my husband; our two children, ages 9 and 11; and I lived with my parents in order to support them with their needs and spend as much quality time together as possible. We knew our time was limited given my dad’s cancer diagnosis; in addition, my mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She is still very sharp and aware but cannot drive and needs some support with cooking meals and remembering daily tasks.

In the week leading up to the fire, my father’s body had started shutting down. He entered hospice care at our home in Pacific Palisades, which was where I had grown up and my parents lived for 46 years. By Tuesday, it seemed clear that his hours were numbered. He gathered me, my mom and my brother and sister around him on his bed, had us hold hands and said a poignant goodbye. He told us the word he wanted us to think of when we think about this experience is “aloha,” which means hello, goodbye and I love you all at once. My mother grew up in Hawaii, so this was a particularly meaningful concept for all of us. His eyes were rolling back in his head, and his breathing was labored. It was clear that the end was near.

And then we looked out of his bedroom window and saw flames in the hills. They were moving quickly down the hillside. My dad always told us that if you can see flames, a fire was dangerously close and you had to get out. But at the same time, in all of the 46 years we had lived in the Palisades, a fire had never come down the hill and into the town itself. We lived in a residential neighborhood, not in the hills, and evacuated in an abundance of caution a handful of times in our lives. But we didn’t think a fire could really reach our home.

We didn’t know if we could move my dad, how much pain it would cause him to move or if he would die during a car ride. We didn’t think we could really leave. Then the planes that my dad told us Canada generously lends to fight fires in the United States started flying very low right over our house picking up water from the ocean, dumping it on the fire and circling back again. My father was aware enough to express his chagrin at the anti-immigrant sentiment so many Americans seem to have, in contrast to the generosity of Canada sending its planes to come to our aid in times of need. He undoubtedly would have felt similarly if he had known about Mexico’s generosity in sending its firefighters to aid a country whose leader has boasted about building a wall to divide us.

Then the kids’ schools called and said they were evacuating. I rushed to pick them up and brought them home. We kept watching the fire, sure that it would be extinguished soon. The wind was blowing toward the ocean, so the fire was moving in the opposite direction. But then the winds changed direction and the fire was headed toward us. We realized we had to leave. We started running around the house frantically grabbing things—some photo albums, a binder of important financial information my dad had prepared to guide us after his death, a few framed photos.

We were still running around grabbing things when my dad somehow appeared downstairs. He had gotten out of bed, gotten dressed, packed his wallet and medication in a bag and walked down the stairs on his own. We didn’t know how—he hadn’t been able to get out of bed without help before. He said, “It’s time to go,” and we left.

We drove about four hours to a family home in San Clemente, California. Somehow, my dad’s awareness kicked in during the ride. He gave my husband directions for shortcuts, informed by nearly 50 years of navigating Los Angeles traffic. He told my kids stories about his childhood and shared information about landmarks we passed. We listened to his favorite songs. He said he couldn’t believe how surreal it was to be close to death, in his bed and then all of a sudden be on a road trip with his grandkids.

When we made it to our home in San Clemente, he wanted to take “one last view” of the ocean, which you can see from the living room. It was his favorite view in the world. When we were on vacation in Hawaii and Costa Rica, he would often say, “This is great, but I would rather be on the deck in San Clemente.” He said goodnight and goodbye to my children, and I tucked him into the bed where he would die the next day.

He was spared the knowledge that his home had burned down. Spared the worry about what we would do without our home. And I am so grateful for that.

Losing our home with all of our possessions pales in comparison to losing my dad. But the things also matter. So many special mementos he had kept for his entire life to pass down to us—letters, photos, memories from our childhoods. Things from our grandparents, from our mother’s childhood. Scrapbooks from our parents’ youths, which, thankfully, we had looked through in the week before the fire because of our father’s impending death. We had spent a lot of time reminiscing and looking through these gems that are now all gone.

In the aftermath, the losses keep hitting us. Sometimes it’s something practical, like we realize we don’t have any socks. Other times it’s more devastating, like the illustrated children’s Bible my parents had read with us and I had just started reading with my son.

The semester had just started, and I shared what happened with my students in an announcement, in which I asked for some patience and empathy if I was slower to respond to emails than I otherwise would be. The outpouring of support from my students touched me profoundly. My father was a professor for more than 40 years, and every day since his death I have received emails from his former students talking about how much he touched their lives. And I’ve found correspondence he shared with his former students about how much they touched his life in return. I can only hope to have that kind of lasting impact—and relationships—with my students.

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Beth Caldwell is a professor of law at the Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, where she worked as a public defender before becoming a professor. She is the author of Deported Americans: Life After Deportation to Mexico, which was a 2021 finalist for a PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

Homeowners have started filing lawsuits against the Southern California Edison utility company, claiming it’s responsible for one of the blazes that tore through the Los Angeles area last week — the deadly Eaton Fire — citing alleged witness accounts and videos from social media that show flames breaking out underneath transmission towers.

“Based upon our investigation, our discussions with various consultants, the public statements of SCE, and the video evidence of the fire’s origin, we believe that the Eaton Fire was ignited because of SCE’s failure to de-energize its overhead wires, which traverse Eaton Canyon,” said Richard Bridgford, attorney with the Newport Beach law firm Bridgford, Gleason and Artinian, in a statement Monday after filing a lawsuit on behalf of Altadena homeowner Jeremy Gursey in Los Angeles Superior Court.

BISHOP, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management Bishop Field Office plans to conduct prescribed fire operations as soon as Nov. 1 in areas of the Bodie Hills, northeast of Lee Vining, in Mono County. Prescribed burning helps to reduce hazardous fuels, moderate the potential negative effects of wildland fire, and increase firefighter and public safety.

Pile-burn operations will only be conducted when weather and fuel moistures allow for safe and successful burning and may continue periodically through the fall and winter.

“The BLM is committed to keeping public lands healthy and productive; these prescribed burns are part of a larger strategy to improve sagebrush habitat conditions throughout the Bodie Hills and reduce treatment related fuels on the landscape,” said Bishop Field Manager Sherri Lisius. “Trees have been cut and piled in historically open sagebrush areas to increase ecosystem resiliency and restore habitat for several species, including sage grouse and migratory mule deer.”

Slash piles, composed of limbs, branches and trees will be burned on approximately 1,500-acres of BLM-managed public lands in the Sinnamon Cut and Rancheria Springs areas. During burn operations, smoke may be visible from locations throughout the Mono Basin, including Lee Vining, Mono City, Conway Ranch Estates, U.S. Route 395, State Route 120 south of Mono Lake, and State Route 167 north of Mono Lake. All prescribed fire operations are conducted in close coordination with the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District.

The Bodie Hills are in central eastern California near the Nevada border. This vast landscape includes rounded volcanic mountains and colorful alpine meadows, lakes, and streams. Because the region serves as the transition zone between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the western edge of the Great Basin, it hosts a unique diversity of plant and animal species. More information is available from the BLM Bishop Field Office at 760-872-5000. Updates will be provided by the BLM through the BLM California Fire Information Facebook and X.

ARCATA, Calif.— The Bureau of Land Management will continue fuels reduction work in the King Range National Conservation Area to reduce the risk of wildfire and restore forest health. The work will begin in September and continue until February 2025. Work will occur along King Peak Road and the Paradise Royal Mountain Bike Trail.

Drivers could expect delays along King Peak Road and could encounter project work along trails.

“This project is aimed at improving fire resilience and forest health,” said King Range NCA Manager Paul Sever. “We are asking anyone visiting the area to be patient as this critical work is completed.”

On King Peak Road and connecting roads, crews will be cutting small trees and moving the material to a chipper on the roadway in a six-mile-long work area about two miles from the community of Shelter Cove. Along the Paradise Royale Mountain Bike Trail, crews will be cutting and piling material away from the trail along the entirety of the trail.

The project is part of an ongoing project funded by a Cal Fire forest health grant. More information is available from the King Range office in Whitethorn by calling 707-986-5400, or by contacting the BLM Arcata Field Office, 707-825-2300.

ALTURAS, Calif. – Fire crews from the Bureau of Land Management Applegate Field Office will conduct prescribed burns to reduce hazardous fuels in northeast California and northwest Nevada beginning in early October. Projects will occur only when weather and fuel conditions allow for safe and successful burning.

“The prescribed burns will help reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire associated with high fuel loading. They will improve firefighter safety and effectiveness in the event of a wildfire,” said Dereck Wilson, Northern California District Manager. “These burns will also help prevent wildfire damages to natural resources and communities within the Wildland Urban Interface, where homes are near public lands.” 

The first project, set for approximately Oct. 10, will be a broadcast burns on about 800 acres of BLM-managed public lands along the Hogback Ridge, south of Fall River Mills. Smoke will be visible throughout the Burney Basin, Big Valley, and to motorists on State Route 299.  

Additionally, prescribed pile burns will be implemented through the late fall, winter and spring, when adequate moisture is present. These projects will occur in Modoc County, northern Washoe County, northeastern Lassen County, and eastern Siskiyou County. Each project will be announced in advance. Northeast California prescribed pile burns are as follows:

• Modoc Gulch, 4 miles southeast of Dorris: 850 acres of piled juniper
• Vya, Nev. projects, 20 miles northeast of Fort Bidwell: 3,600 acres of piled juniper
• Twin Lakes, 18 miles southeast of Cedarville: 700 acres of piled juniper
• Rygrass Swale, 9 miles south of Alturas: 500 acres of piled juniper
• XL, 3 miles northeast of Alturas: 30 acres of piled juniper
• Dry Cow, 5 miles east of Madeline: 250 acres of piled juniper
• Nelson Corral, 6 miles northwest of Madeline: 50 acres of piled juniper

These piles of brush, tree limbs and small trees are from projects to reduce hazardous fuels that could feed wildfires.