Getting Smoky Around Here

...I would think that you guys should be fairly safe for a few years from this happening again, as the fuel will have been burnt up.... :dunno:

Stay safe! :wave:

This is very true. Most areas involved haven't had a fire in 40 - 60 years, so it's been needing to burn. For the most part, the crews are just letting it do its thing, and concentrating on protecting structures.

Quick update:

Finally got to sleep this morning about 7:00, and was woken up by the neighbor at about 11:00 pointing out to me that we now have four fire department strike teams (from the Monterey California area) staging on our street. I'm looking at a pumper truck 50 yards away outside my office window (at the end of the cul-de-sac) as I type this. They're just standing by, and have assured us they'll let us know if and when it's time to go. Right now, we're breaking out the lawn chairs and buckets of ice for the crews, and everyone is kicking back swapping stories. At this point they're not expecting the fire to quite reach us, but they're here to handle any embers that might come this way.

And Bill, rest assured that we're not refusing to leave. Heck, we've already left three times so far. :D The neighbors across the street are good friends with a fire captain and a sheriff's officer. Both have been here personally checking out the situation, and both have agreed that we're taking the right tactic for our location. There are other areas (that don't have the same topography and escape route) where they would not agree with this "leave and come back" approach. These out-of-town firefighters have told us they were glad we're here, since we've been able to describe some of the topography of our immediate area to give them a better idea of what to do if things get busy.

More later, but things are OK for now...
 
Here is a nice web video of the last 24 hours looking toward where Vaughn lives.

http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/TujungaWX/2/video.html?month=09&year=2009&filename=current.flv

It sure looks a lot bigger from here. :p You can see in the last few seconds of the video loop how the fires flared up at the base of the mountains last night. That was some of the stuff that caught our attention last night and prompted us to leave then. Apparently some, if not all, of that was from backfires lit by the fire crews.
 
I'm amazed that you still have power.,, Be safe

So far the fires in our area have stayed pretty much in the hills, so they haven't hit any major power lines. The main lines into this area are coming from the west, but the fire has been coming mostly from the east. (With some south and north thrown in for grins.) I know some other areas have lost power, but we're still in good shape at this point.
 
Vaughn I haven't had much time to thoroughly check up on this site, but I did read through all the progress on this thread. I'm sure you're sick of hearing it, but stay safe, be ready to bolt out of there, and don't try to be a hero! ...oh and if the fire's comin your way make sure to grab that guitar collection of yours :)
 
Well, our personal fire department has rolled off for the night. They didn't know if another would be sent in their place tonight or not. It's not looking like they'll be necessary at this point. The five crews (I missed counting one of the crews earlier today) on our street had nothing to do but sit around and wait all day.

The New York Times website has a pretty good fire map here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/31/us/20090831-fires.html

You can use the slider at the top right corner of the map to see how this fire has progressed from day to day. Dark circles show fires spotted on that day, and yellow areas are previously-burned areas. The darker circles show why we were on edge Monday the 31st.

Here are a couple of telling screen shots from today...

This one shows the overall area. As before, our house is right above the word "Sunland" on the map:

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And here's a little closer look at our neighborhood. We're on Denivelle Place in the white zone just south of where you see Mt. Gleason Avenue:

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The yellow circles represent 1 mile in diameter, and they indicate that at least one fire was spotted by satellite somewhere within that circle. For example, the circle to the west of us covers some residential streets, but they are not burned...the burned area is on the other side of the hill from them at the top of that circle. (In fact, they're doing a controlled burn over there right now.) Anyway, this gives an indication of how fortunate we've been.

And here are a few other random shots from the day...

Here's what I saw when I woke up bright and early at 11:00 after 4 hours of sleep. This is from my front lawn:

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And a look from our driveway, across the cul-de-sac:

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And a bit closer view:

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And a look down the street:

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And a shot of a crew just kicking back in front of one of the neighbors' houses...

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We had crews from the Monterey California area. There were trucks from Salinas, Fort Hunter Liggett, and Monterey. They work and travel as a group of 5 crews and a captain. These guys (and one gal) rolled in Monday morning at about 2:00 AM after a 7-hour drive, got three hours of sleep and hit the fire lines by 5:00 AM. They've been working 12-hour shifts since then. I commented to one bunch of guys that I figured they must enjoy getting a kick-back day like today once in a while, and they said no, they'd rather be up on the hill mixing it up with the fire.

As the day went on, we made sure they had a few comforts like chairs and ice for their drinks:

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Then, at about 7:30 this evening, their shift was done, and they headed back to the base camp at Hansen Dam. They got lots of thanks and applause from us as they drove off:

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And a parting shot for the evening. Looks like things can start to finally calm down around here:

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That's the latest... :wave:
 
Well, Wednesday has come and gone, and things are getting back to normal. We're all back at home, as is all of our stuff that we'd taken away during the various evacuations. (Norman, I slept at home every night, but LOML stayed offsite.) I even mowed the lawn today, and started with some of the ash cleanup around the yard. It'll be a while before we get the smell of smoke out of everything.

I only shot a few photos Wednesday, but I think this one says it all...

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As far as I know, no homes were lost in my vicinity. There were a few remote houses that burned in Big Tujunga Canyon, but I believe they were a few miles upstream from us. I don't know of any residential neighborhoods around here (Sunland, Tujunga, Montrose, La Crescenta) that had any losses. I've now had a chance to drive around a bit, and now that the air has cleared a little I have a better feel for the extent of the local damage. There are places where the fire was closer to us than we'd thought, and others where it was farther than it looked. There are a couple of nearby housing developments that I was surprised to see undamaged. At Riverwood, a small development across the canyon from us, the flames had been stopped right at some of the residents' property lines. (A testament to good brush clearing around the houses.) A lot of the mountain hillsides are now black, but by next spring they'll be green again, just in time to go brown when the hot weather hits.

I've also now had a chance to go through my photos (all 430 or so of them) and cull a few more to show here. The nighttime shots were taken Monday night, which was the most tense time for us. The whole mountain east of our house was burning and the flames moving our way. Some of them are out of focus, but I think they help tell the story.

This is a police roadblock just below the next door neighbor's back yard, as a fire truck is passing by...

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Dunno why, but I liked this one...

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Several more shots of the fire to the east of us on Monday night as it marched its way our direction...

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A couple more shots of one of the fire trucks leaving our street Tuesday evening...

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And for grins, here are a few GIF animations I did...

Nighttime Fire

Water Drop 1

Water Drop 2

So this should be the last installment of pictures -- at least until I put together some of the aftermath photos. I also need to go through the video footage I shot and see if there's anything worth sharing. If so, I'll let you all know.

As bad as this fire has been, it could have been much worse. It really helped to know there were folks around the country (and world) pulling for us. Thanks.
 
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