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Wildfires create immediate and dangerous gaps in chronic disease management for many vulnerable patients.

Disaster preparedness is a health equity issue, and family physicians have a critical role to play in it.

The psychological toll of wildfire displacement persisted long after the smoke cleared for those affected.

I remember standing in my front yard watching the warm, golden Southern California sky as the sun set. The sky was orange, but not the typical soft, welcoming orange of dusk. These were flames, flickering at the night sky with billowing columns of smoke climbing high. Ash drifted down like gray and white snow, settling silently across my front porch like a scene from a post apocalyptic movie. I stood there watching with horror, anxiously tracking updates on the Santa Ana winds, wondering whether our family would need to evacuate.

Fortunately, the winds were in our favor. We were never in the evacuation zone.

But for so many of my patients, colleagues, and friends, that was not the case.

For those in the evacuation zones, there were no leisure decisions. They had minutes to grab a few precious memories, documents maybe, the dog, and then drive away from their homes not knowing whether they would ever come back. Colleagues and patients described to me afterwards the surreal weight of that moment: standing in their house asking themselves what was truly irreplaceable. The lucky ones were able to return. For others, there was nothing left to come back to. Among those who lost everything were physicians and residents, people who had dedicated their lives to caring for others. Some lost their homes, the spaces that had always made them feel grounded and safe. Others lost their practices, the rooms where relationships and trust with their patients had been built over years. Some lost both.

For 25 days, the........

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