Fires, Smoke, Helicopters, and Evacuation Warnings

Oh My!

Fire is a way of life in California. It’s just a given, like hurricane season on the Florida Coast. Or tornadoes and trailer parks.

Tornadoes specifically target trailer parks, or so it seems.

This fire season is starting early. This first fire popped up about. 2.5 miles from my home. Flames were clearly visible from my vantage point and they were impressive!

To their credit the Local Fire Department, and California Department of Forestry jumped right on it. On the one hand, the location was fortunate. The origin point seems to have been right off a main paved road. On the other hand, a neighbor who works for CDF says this highlights just how much dry brush is on the mountains around us. Thus indicating the danger.

I wonder if the CDF thought it was novel to be able to drive up and get to work instead of having to slog their way through dense brush carrying all the gear they’d need in 85° heat, start working the fire itself.

Starting initially at about 35 acres, the fire has in two days spread to almost 1000 acres.

Planes, Helicopters, and Manpower have been working nonstop since the fire broke out on Saturday. Watching those pilots making precision water drops has been amazing to watch.

Once the fire is out, that part of town will have a natural fire break so long term it may be a good thing.

Thus far there have been no loss of structures. 300 homes were evacuated. These homes are in a valley area down the mountain a bit from my neighborhood. I feel fortunate that the fire didn’t roar up the canyon into our area. I feel sorry for the folks that had to evacuate. I’ve done it myself and was prepared to do it this time. It’s a pain in the butt. As of now, though the evacuated folks have homes to which they can return.

I know that relief too. It’s with great joy that I’ve come back to my home after days or weeks in a hotel or shelter and saw my house and neighborhood still standing.

To the readers, blog postings will be delayed and will probably consist of a day or two backlog showing up all at once.

Yesterday, all the fiber and copper communication lines burned. Shortly thereafter, the power went out for 6 hours or so. The power is back, but the estimate for the communication repair is next Monday at the earliest.

Apparently the hard communication line damage has affected the local cell towers, too. We’re down to one bar of 4G or LTE where we’re located. We’re the lucky ones. The rest of the town shadowed by mountains has no cell service at all.

That’s the long way of saying that even my cellular hotspot on my phone isn’t working worth a darn. Without that ability to connect my computer to the internet with speed and reliability I’m not going to be able to post very much.

Since the main copper hard lines are down, 911 isn’t working properly. It looks like local phone calls can be made within the town so folks have to call the fire dept building, then ask for them to dispatch whatever service is needed. The CERT team and HAM radio operators are also helping out.

I’ve been getting a lot of work in on other writing projects. I think this outage while inconvenient is actually a good thing in that regard.

With cool temperatures and relatively calm winds, the fire seems far less smoky today. I’m hoping that these conditions are helping the firefighters get a handle on it.

Until next time be safe.