Away From Home

In October 2017, a series of 250 wildfires started burning across the state of California. The wildfires broke out throughout Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte, and Solano Counties. These wildfires caused around $14.5 billion in damages, including $11 billion in losses and $1.5 billion in fire suppression costs. These fires killed 44 people and hospitalized at least 192 others, making this one of the deadliest wildfire events in the United States during the past century.Sadly, the 2020 wildfires have surpassed the 2017 fires in areas burned, property damage, and lives lost.By some accounts, more than 37,000 animals were displaced by the 2017 fires. This tale unfolds as six of those animals – four cats, a bird, and a dog – are left homeless by the rampaging fires and decide to embark on a dangerous journey to find a new home.Jellybean begins the journey by escaping from his humans' home in Lakeport, California, and then rescuing the tabby cat next door before fire torches both houses. Homeless and adrift in a natural world that contrasts with their safe human-controlled environment, Jellybean realizes that they will either wind up in an animal shelter overwhelmed with pets because of the fires or dying of starvation or predation in the surrounding forest. Jellybean lays out his plan to the reluctant tabby, Coco. His humans own a second home in Calistoga, fifty miles south near Napa, and he's taken that trip with them in the car many times. Jellybean believes that his human family has gone there and can guide them to the house by following the two main highways used to make that human trip by car. Consider it Jellybean's and Coco's "Yellow Brick Road."Along the way, they are joined by an old, overweight Maine coon cat who they saved from a fiery death in a vet clinic. The three cats then find a Himalayan show cat whose only worldly experience is being spoiled at a cat shows and separated from her human owner in a last-minute evacuation. Then they hook up with a Golden retriever who escaped with Coco from an animal control facility and who is also in search of his humans --a married couple and their three children. When that Himalayan -- Alana -- is captured by four human teenagers who crave cruelty, guns, and money they didn't earn, the rescue effort introduces them to a blue and white parakeet Skittles. The bird lived in a nursing home, coaxing smiles from older humans who have either been forgotten or neglected by their younger family members. Then, united as a team, all four battle the fires that relentlessly pursue them, an animal control officer who happens to hate all pets, a coyote that needs to eat, a troop of vicious feral cats led by a muscular black cat named Deadfoot. The final battle occurs just a few hundred yards from where Jellybean's human family has moved to their second home. Throughout the journey, the pets reveal the contradictory qualities of humans -- at times cruel but also compassionate and loving. Moreover, the pets evaluate their lives at the hands of their human masters and question the tradeoffs they make as household pets -- safety and security balanced against subjugation and humiliation. How do pets weigh the consequences of living a life of servitude -- typically voluntary -- especially when they all have been separated from their humans due to fires?