Well my friends, once again San Diego County is on fire, fires to the North of me having burned 145,000 acres and hundreds of homes, a fire to the South of me 20,000 acres and unknown how many homes, but one life has been lost in the area where it started, Potrero.
We're fine, I don't think that the fires are going to head my way, but I'm keeping my eyes open just in case.
A quarter of a million people have been ordered to evacuate, or have evacuated, you never can be sure which it is. But it's a big mess, a true disaster, you look at pictures of the wind whipping the fire, it just doesn't look real, but look at this slide show for yourself. Look at that picture, 16, fire from side to side. Look at some of those pictures of this huge billowing cloud of smoke looming, boiling, on the horizon. Look at that blood red sunset picture.
All real. I've seen that tower of smoke so many times in my life, but somehow the last couple of times have just been disastrous to the people of the county. I remember the Laguna Fire in '70 as a young lad, the air brown and thick with ash, I remember the Cedar Fire in '03, the flames creeping down the hillsides by my house, I remember the canyon behind my Dad's house burning every other summer fior some reason (damn kids and firecrackers, a cherry bomb one year I know because I heard it go off!) and let me tell you, this shit ain't no fun.
But that's how it goes, I always knew that summer was over when the fires started up in the mountains, that's just the cycle we live by in San Diego. Only when I was a kid nobody lived in those areas. Now, they either are subdivisions like San Diego Country Estates, or people building on their remote properties to get away from the subdivisions and housing tracts.
Right now people are setting up camp with their animals, horses and dogs and cats, you just don't realize how many people have horses in this area, but they're all over the place, there are just so many rural areas in San Diego, it's not just this big ol beach town and biotech metropolis at all. The High School by my house is setting up, I'm going to go take a look and see if they need stuff, I'll give an update when i get back.
For now it's all quiet, but like Sunday afternoon, it can go from nothng to something in a matter of moments. Right now they're evacuating the northern beach cities, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas, so the Northern fire, the Witch Creek Fire, has gone from the mountains to the ocean in a day, not sure when it's going to stop. Pretty freaky.
Update:
Nobody needs stuff, everything seems pretty calm in my neck of the woods. That's it, not much of an update.
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3 comments:
My cousins who live in Escondido got split up between Ramona and Julian where my other cousin lives. They are without power and water in Julian, Romana has been evacuated. Worried about them getting back home, they have an infant with them.
Wonder how many National Guard troops CA has in Iraq?
Glad you and Mrs. are safe Duckman.
Thanks Seven, we just need to ride it out for the next few days. The folks up north are really getting hit hard, it's frustrating that we can't can't really do anything for them but hope an pray, fortunately all those evacuations were done to prevent loss of life, and that's turned out pretty well, not like the last fire at all.
Been sick all week so I didn't realize how bad it was until yesterday... Hope all is still well with you guys - I just got word that my bro and his family missed the worst in Escondido. Boy, it gets scarier each year, doesn't it?
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