[Sylmar, California; September 1. Image via Getty]

SYLMAR, CA - SEPTEMBER 01: Wildlife Waystation founder Martine Colette looks into a cage at chimpanzees that are being evacuated from the 160 acre animal sanctuary and rehabilitation facility for wild and exotic wildlife as the Station Fire approaches September 1, 2009 in Sylmar, California. The out of control Station Fire has burned more than 120,000 acres, over 50 homes and has forced thousands of evacuations as nearly 10,000 homes are threatened. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

[Tujunga, California; September 1. Image via Getty]

TUJUNGA, CA - SEPTEMBER 01: A resident wipes her eyes as she clears brush from behind her home September 1, 2009 in Tujunga, California. The out of control Station Fire has burned more than 120,000 acres, over 50 homes and has forced thousands of evacuations as nearly 10,000 homes are threatened. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

[Los Angeles, August 30. Image via Getty]

LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 30: Evacuated resident of Altadena, California, Cecilia Miller (L) and Teresa Martinez look at a map of the Station Fire posted on a wall at an evacuation center at La Cresenta High Scool gymnasium on August 30, 2009. A broad swath of the northern Crescenta Valley was evacuated Ssaturday, as the out of control Station Fire tripled in size to more than 35,000 acres and burned towards homes from Pasadena to the San Fernando Valley. The wildfire, which broke out Wednesday afternoon near a ranger station and the Angeles Crest Highway above La Canada Flintridge, has forced thousands of evacuations as nearly 10,000 homes are threatened. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Yesterday, I rang again. They'd moved locations and were now in Laguna at a shopping center, wasting time. I asked John about the house. Again, he seemed upbeat: he didn't know how close the fires were to the house, and was waiting for news from a neighbor. At the very least, the fire line seemed to be a few miles away; or so the websites were reporting. I asked him about the sky; he said it was slightly gray, and in the distance, south and east, brown and yellow. Laura babbled in the background. I pictured the two of them standing near a candy shop or children's store and Laura pulling on his pants trousers, urging him on, and in. A few hours later, he called to say everything was gone.

I am from California, the part of California where earthquakes and floods, not wildfires, are the norm — nay expected. But anyone from California — or anyone familiar with the work of those writers or artists whose careers were made through the dispassionate chronicling of California's strange, singular, ominous beauty — knows that Californians live with the knowledge that the ground could, at any moment, fall from beneath them, whether literally or figuratively. Some question why Californians live that way. The only acceptable answer is that if you haven't done it, you'd never understand.

Not understanding was part of the problem for us yesterday. At my urging, one of my writers composed a post on one aspect of the media's coverage of the fires currently blackening much of Southern California, with the critique that, as is the case in much of American society, the ivory towers of the rich and the famous were receiving a disproportionate amount of the attention. However, for reasons of haste, an attention-getting headline and yes, some heartless bitchiness about political persuasion and income distribution, some of that critique was lost and, as a result, many understandably took offense.

We're sorry.

Rich or poor, white, brown or black, at this point, over a million Americans have been displaced in San Diego County and points farther north, with an untold number of those left without homes, and in some cases, livelihoods, to return to. There are still 13 wildfires burning out-of-control, and the weather forecast, though not completely dire, remains extremely troubling. And despite the easy target served up via media coverage of fire-threatened, privileged "tabliverse regulars" like Heidi, Spencer, and Suzanne Somers, we should have been more sensitive about the entire thing. To borrow (er, mangle) a phrase from another California native and far better writer, we can safely say that the winds yesterday showed us just how close to the edge we sometimes get.