Originally Posted By MOLLYSMOM Living in the woods, I have had my share of fire scares. I have watched this progress on tv, and I sincerely hope that everyone remains safe. Fire is a frightening thing. Please keep safe, everybody.
Originally Posted By LuLu The wind has blown away all our smoke now, it still smells from ash on the ground. A quick look at this map of all the fires shows close to 100,000 acres burned now - terrible! <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2rbztq" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/2rbztq</a>
Originally Posted By beamerdog I hope everyone is staying safe. It's such a shame to lose anything to fire, and scary, too. I used to do consulting for a fire protection and safety engineering firm. They designed a unique and effective system that wets down the outside of the building ( in this case a children's hospital). Too bad they couldn't think of more retrofits of this system to residences and historical buildings in areas like these that are routinely subject to horrible fires.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ Part of it is our own fault. I was listening to 60 Minutes on the radio last night and they had the head of the fire departments - some national gov't guy whose title I can't remember. For 100 years, our policy was to put out fires as fast as possible. As a result, fuel has been building up over the years and we now see fires far larger than we ever did in the past. Add global warming..... Glad to hear skies are clearing for our LPer's. Let's all hope for dying winds.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ Yikes! Just found out two of my cousins are evacuated. One lives not too far from Magic Mountain, so I'm guessing that's the Canyon Country fire. The other lives in Vista, near San Diego.
Originally Posted By alexbook A few minutes ago, the air and the light around here suddenly went orange. I'm 20 miles from the Santiago Canyon fire--I can hardly imagine what things must be like up in the hills. <--Shivering at the thought, despite the heat. Good luck to the folks in the fire zones, and to anybody trying to fly in or out of Southern California today.
Originally Posted By x Pirate_Princess x I have a friend in Escondido, and the fire is there now. He's waiting on word for evacuation. He sent me a pic of the skies near his house, and it's scary. I'll share it later, as I'm at school right now. Scary scary. Hope everyone stays safe.
Originally Posted By LuLu Oh SuzieQ, that one's very bad! I hope their homes are OK. Is your bro safe at home? I wasn't sure from your earlier post if he left or stayed. Alex, I hate that "orange sunlight" thing. We had that yesterday. It's freaky. I'm sorry to hear that Anaheim area is getting the smoke now. The San Diego fire is also real bad. :-(
Originally Posted By SuzieQ My brother did stay home. He learned last time he went on a strike force that he's getting too old for that *stuff*, LOL! They called a bunch of guys who work his shift because they were all heading into their 4-days off. It's lucrative for fire fighters like that. It would have been 4 days at overtime pay. Yowza, that's expensive! Your link is great, LuLu! Thank you so much for posting it.
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP Up here in the San Bernardino Mountains we have two (relatively) small fires burning. However, big chuncks of the mountain are being evacuated. We have our cars packed and are awaiting more information. They are evacuating thousands of homes, but very few have burned (reports of up to 12, but those are rumors). The officials tend to take a better safe than sorry approach, "lets get people off the mountain were they can't possibly be in any harms way." So, I'm not preparing for my house to burn down, rather I'm preparing to get out of the firefighters way for an indefinate period. 3 days? A week? No one knows. The last time they evacuated the mountain, it was two weeks before everyone came home again, but almost everyone DID come home. Of the thousands of homes on the mountain, under 20 total burned.
Originally Posted By iamsally WOW!!!! We were gone all day yesterday and I slept in this morning so didn't hear about the fires until the noon news. We lost our house to fire in 1984. I think the only thing that kept us from going completely nuts was the fact that our children got out safely. That is the most important thing, the people; residents and firefighters both. I pray for the safety of you all.
Originally Posted By MOLLYSMOM Thank you for the link, Lulu. Living up here in Washington, I am not overly familiar with many places I have been hearing about today. Please, everyone, stay safe.
Originally Posted By Mary Poppins I'm praying for all of you who are affected by the fires. I hope you stay healthy and safe.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I hope everyone stays safe. I have to ask the question... I know the views must be gorgeous, but between mudslides during the rainy season and wildfires during the dry season, why would anyone choose to live in those hills? It is not a question of if they will burn. Only when. I just can't imagine living with the stress of worrying about wildfires every year.
Originally Posted By debtee Thinking of you guys in the fire area's and hope you all stay safe and sound. We know all about bush fires in this country and how dangerous they can be!
Originally Posted By LuLu RoadTrip, the fires have been very bizarre this time, many of the homes burned are not in the canyons or on hills, but right on the beach, or in tract developments. If you look at the map I linked, there are over a dozen fires in 7 counties. It's all over the place, and not in any one "predictable" area.
