An Audio Retelling Of Events Already Forgotten.
When the clouds clear, the smell of smoke fades, and their cars are no longer blanketed in ash. When sharing GoFundMe links for the victims starts to feel like a chore, squeezed between photos of weekend adventures and casual stories.
But this isn’t new.
A celebrity’s home burns down, and while that’s tragic, my heart breaks more for the small families, the elderly couple, or the young people who finally managed to buy their first modest home.
A place filled with photos, carefully chosen furniture, kids’ drawings pinned to the fridge, and memories in every corner. Now, only chimneys and piles of ash remain.
Where will they go?
The community responds faster than the government, but they forget just as quickly. They walk around town wearing masks.
Do they realize that we wear nothing on the fire line?
Our yellow and green uniforms are caked with ash, ripped, and burned—marks from past fires that we wear with pride. The ash they’re so afraid to breathe, the one the news warns will cause cancer and COPD, is the same ash we breathe in every summer.
But no one cares.
Fires ravaged Southern California, yet the news only highlights celebrities and TikTok influencers trying to capitalize on the tragedy.
Before this, it was Paradise. But you’ve already forgotten about that.
The Tubbs Fire killed 22 people—does anyone remember? The South Canyon Fire claimed 14 lives. The El Dorado Fire was just five years ago, but all people remember is how it started.
When the fires die, so does the attention. And we’re left to carry the scars—while the world moves on.
All eyes are on Southern California, but this isn’t just our problem. It’s a bigger picture. It’s just in the headlines now because an actor from Police Academy stood in the middle of the road and did an interview.
My heart goes out to the families who are now homeless, the pets scared in shelters tonight, the wildland firefighters who don’t ride in red trucks, who have to beg the public for better pay, while we’re all living in our trucks.
The world’s back to normal now and it’s sickening.
They’re going to forget about us.
But we’ll remember the victims.
We’ll remember the homes that were more than just structures—they were a family’s safe space to find peace, to feel loved.
They’re going to forget about us.
It’s up to us to make sure they don’t.
-Robo
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