Thursday, October 23, 2008

Luckily, This One Was Small


OK, since I'm an idiot when it comes to uploading pictures, you get to see the finale first. This was at 4:00pm today, just as they were getting the fire out. It reportedly burned about 150-200 acres. The above shot was taken from the school yard where my kids go to school, about a half a mile from our house. (Don't forget to compare it to the bottom 2 shots, mmmk?)



I had to go out and run a couple of errands and when I came out of the store I got to see the helecopter come down to a small reservoir to get water to dump on the fire. They hover over the water and the long 'tail' sucks up the water. It is incredible to watch, and I had never seen it up close like this before. That is dust in the picture from the helecopter, not smoke from the fire.


Above shot taken at 2:30, when the kids were getting out of school. When the smoke is black like this they haven't really gotten to it yet. As the smoke gets whiter (as in the top shot) they are dousing it good. The smoke in the above shot makes it look way worse than it actually was, and closer than it actually was. The fire started at about 2 pm, about 2-3 miles from where we are, as the crow flies.


This last shot was taken 30 minutes later. I don't know if you'll be able to see it (maybe click to enlarge? I'm such a blog photo idiot, sorry.) but there is a large line of flames in the dead center of this photo, next to the palm tree.

For those of you that don't live in California, this is an (almost) every day occurrence this time of year, all up and down the coast. Almost 5 years ago, to the day, we were evacuated when a fire started on the other end of our city and spread across the northern edge, across these very mountains, in just a couple of hours. We stayed away for 3 days and luckily had something to come home to. Only 7 houses burned that year in our city-pretty amazing! That is thanks to those giant helecopters and the unparalleled fire department we have here.

So, what did you do today?


Headless Mom

9 comments:

Loralee Choate said...

Our whole damn state catches on fire every year, too.

Anonymous said...

Glad you and yours are okay. We had one a few blocks from our house on Saturday. Scary.

Ruralmama said...

Oh my goodness!

That scares the socks off of me!

Fire is one of my worst re-occurring nightmares. I'm lucky to live in East Central MN, where it's fewer and far between.
I'm so glad you guys are OK. They didn't evacuate the school though?!?

I can't find my blog said...

Thanks you guys.

Sarah- The fire was pretty small and not close-well I guess that's relative! The kids get out at 2:30 anyway so I'm sure that had a lot to do with them not doing anything about it. I'm sure if it had been worse they would have.

Anonymous said...

Skeery!

Anonymous said...

This is why I don't live in California....:)

headless girl :] said...

thank god there wasnt an evacuation

Anonymous said...

Wow! Those pictures make me think of my Jr. High/High School years in So Cal! My cousin from the midwest used to say to me "In California there are 2 seasons: Firestorm and Mudslide"

Glad you're safe!

Rocks In The Wash said...

So scary! Glad to know you and your loved ones are safe!