Day: August 9, 2013

As of 8 am no homes have been destroyed. 

My Alarm system is still responding to commands and reporting status. So that is good news, it means that my house is still there. 

We have only 5% containment at this time. 

The Firefighters have been pounding the fire with air drops all night but the area that is burning hasn’t been burned for a very long time.

Here’s a photo of the first hint that there was a problem.

It doesn’t look like much does it?

Within just a few hours the scene look like the next photo.

The fire started coming down the face of the hill toward the line of homes 2 streets above my street.

That’s when the fire department told us to leave.

It make sense because the streets are narrow and if the fire were to advance toward the houses suddenly, there would be pandemonium as the residents and the firefighters tried to get out of the way.

This way, if the firefighters have to bail out, at least all they have to worry about is getting themselves and other people who have appropriate training instead of trying to make sure that a bunch of panicky civilians too.

In my neighborhood only one person didn’t evacuate. It was his right but probably not exactly the smartest move anyone ever made.

We’ve evacuated to a very local hotel. The dog is sprawled on the tile floor and is finally calming down.

Between Kitties, chickens and his whole world being turned upside down for the second time in less than a month he’s a little stressed. I’m thinking we’re going to just hang here with the A/C running and just relax.

You have to love the fact that the dog has ice floating in his water. Can you say spoiled puppy?

I guess I shouldn’t complain about interruptions…

Today I’m working, getting some writing done, I’m inside, not really paying much attention. Then I catch a whiff of smoke.

A moment later I hear trucks, you know… the heavy diesel truck engines.

Then all hell breaks loose!

Yes, there is a fire and I’m evacuated.

This fire started in the canyon where I often hike. There is NO source of ignition in that little box canyon.

So I’m suspecting that the fire was started due to human stupidity.

So I’m at a friends house tonight and tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do for the longer term. Maybe if we’re lucky the firefighters will have knocked this down.

God knows the firefighting response was amazing!

I swear, the trucks were so thick the road above my place looked like a firefighting convention. The hotshot crews were walking up the hill straight into the smoke and later I could hear the distinctive sound of chainsaws.

Water dropping helicopters and even a big jet of some kind were flying over dropping all kinds of water or fire retardant chemicals.

I am really impressed with the fire people.

I hope the people that started this get caught and get their butts kicked.

Here are some of photos from today.

I’m not going to be able to upload until I hit a public WiFi site.

Hopefully that WiFi will be one of my own.