07-12-2021, 10:30 AM
Happy Fire Season! Said no one ever.
On the way back from Oakhurst, where tQ and I had gone to our first in person movie in over 14 months, we noticed a plume of smoke to the Northwest of the house. The plume didn't concern me greatly because it was in the direction of the Grupe Ranch where CalFire practices fighting fires. As a matter of fact, CalFire had just done a practice fire at Grupe just a couple of weeks ago. It just seemed odd they would practice putting out a fire on the hottest day of the year. At 3pm, the temperature at the Lair was 111º
Turns out it wasn't a practice fire. It was a real fire. What started off as a 50 acre fire at 3pm, became a 4500 acre fire with 0% containment by 8pm. All sorts of Flying Fire Fighting kept flying over the house as they went back and forth from Eastman Reservoir. The fog of an emergency set in. We didn't know if we were supposed to evacuate or not. We were getting various conflicting reports. Supposedly the street next to us was told to evacuate but we couldn't confirm. But we slowly started to think about what we wanted to put in the car.
There was no way for us to get all the cats. At best, I figured on at least 7 of the cats going into the carriers. The dogs would be fine. Our neighbors popped over to see if we needed help. Reese had already gone towards the fire to help a neighbor pull out his horses in a trailer. Reese, who has 3 cows, wasn't going to be able to catch his cows if the fire swept through our area.
Fortunately the wind blew from our house toward the fire. The main fire was east of us and ran from North to South. tQ pulled up a map that showed the fire burned about 3 miles from the Lair. But looking from my drone, it seemed to be farther away from us than that. At 8:30, we decided we were safe enough to go to bed, which we did.
This morning, the fire still burns and the air is full of smoke all around the house. I think they were up to 5% containment.
In irony news, a house up the road, that we seriously considered buying because it had 70 acres of land but didn't because the house was so poor might have been consumed by the fire.
On the way back from Oakhurst, where tQ and I had gone to our first in person movie in over 14 months, we noticed a plume of smoke to the Northwest of the house. The plume didn't concern me greatly because it was in the direction of the Grupe Ranch where CalFire practices fighting fires. As a matter of fact, CalFire had just done a practice fire at Grupe just a couple of weeks ago. It just seemed odd they would practice putting out a fire on the hottest day of the year. At 3pm, the temperature at the Lair was 111º
Turns out it wasn't a practice fire. It was a real fire. What started off as a 50 acre fire at 3pm, became a 4500 acre fire with 0% containment by 8pm. All sorts of Flying Fire Fighting kept flying over the house as they went back and forth from Eastman Reservoir. The fog of an emergency set in. We didn't know if we were supposed to evacuate or not. We were getting various conflicting reports. Supposedly the street next to us was told to evacuate but we couldn't confirm. But we slowly started to think about what we wanted to put in the car.
There was no way for us to get all the cats. At best, I figured on at least 7 of the cats going into the carriers. The dogs would be fine. Our neighbors popped over to see if we needed help. Reese had already gone towards the fire to help a neighbor pull out his horses in a trailer. Reese, who has 3 cows, wasn't going to be able to catch his cows if the fire swept through our area.
Fortunately the wind blew from our house toward the fire. The main fire was east of us and ran from North to South. tQ pulled up a map that showed the fire burned about 3 miles from the Lair. But looking from my drone, it seemed to be farther away from us than that. At 8:30, we decided we were safe enough to go to bed, which we did.
This morning, the fire still burns and the air is full of smoke all around the house. I think they were up to 5% containment.
In irony news, a house up the road, that we seriously considered buying because it had 70 acres of land but didn't because the house was so poor might have been consumed by the fire.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm