Getting Smoky Around Here

Yikes!

Yikes!

Another friend of mine from the area posted some pictures on Facebook. That looks really ominous. Here's hoping the fire doesn't cross that ridge!
 
if yu get some help vaughn yu could load up that yellow thing and take it to a safe place as well...forest fires are unique as they are dangerous, been involved in one myslef years ago.. they can travel very fast. so dont leave your shoe laces untied:)
 
For those not familiar with the So. Cal. area, The reason why they have so many of these fires is because of the Chaperal. It is a natural plant that grows in the foothills. it's a small tree/shrub that after so many years will die off. It contains Creasote (sp??) which is highly flamable. The thing is the fires is natures way of clearing the old chaperal so that new can grow. Unfortunatly as urban sprall has caused people to move into the foothills they are exposed to this occurance and thus the damage is higher then if the fires occured in non populated areas.

Now back to your regular programing.
Good luck Vaughn
 
Good luck Vaughn. I know what you are going through. Before we sold our cabin up Highway 4 in the Sierra Nevada. I spent many a fire season with topo maps and a CDF scanner. Had to evacuate once for three days, and when I got back, I found a charred half dollar sized chunk of Ponderosa Pine bark landed on and singed my deck. If worse gets to worse, remember, tools and wood can be replaced. Get the family photographs, films and heirlooms packed first. I could store your wood for a while . . .

Don, I guess Govna Awnold will be sending more of our NorCal water down south for fire protection so they can build more homes up in the canyons. But that’s another story.
 
Tried calling my cousin in Corona, no answer but did get voice mail.
I have no idea where she is in relation to the fires.
We haven't heard from Vaughn for a while. Hope he, his wife and their home are OK. News reports now say some homes have been lost and several people injured.
 
For those not familiar with the So. Cal. area, The reason why they have so many of these fires is because of the Chaperal. It is a natural plant that grows in the foothills. it's a small tree/shrub that after so many years will die off. It contains Creasote (sp??) which is highly flamable. The thing is the fires is natures way of clearing the old chaperal so that new can grow. Unfortunatly as urban sprall has caused people to move into the foothills they are exposed to this occurance and thus the damage is higher then if the fires occured in non populated areas.

Now back to your regular programing.
Good luck Vaughn

I have to wonder why areas around homes aren't protected by killing the Chaperal with Roundup and then replanting with something else.
 
Good find Bill. :thumb: Here's roughly where our house is at:

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The little yellow square above Sunland is the Alpine Way evacuation area. We're technically a few hundred yards outside of the boundary of that square, but close enough that the police included us when they were telling everyone to leave. If you look north and west of that area, you'll see a canyon (right above my red line). That's Big Tujunga Canyon. I just got done taking a bunch of pics of the fire working its way up the hillside in the red circle here:

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More later...just got word from the police that things are picking up again and headed our way. Time to get busy again. :rolleyes:
 
No worries, Ken. I'm not the heroic type. ;)

We live in a cul-de-sac, and most of the neighbors have been through this here before. I'm pretty much following their lead. We're all loaded and ready to go if necessary, and we have a good escape route. Most of the extra vehicles have been moved off site, and loading up the dogs will be easy...if I open the door and tell them to load up, they'll be in the Lexus before I have the front door closed behind me. Things are pretty well cleared around our perimeter, so we're more concerned with embers than a direct fire reaching us. And we all have composite shingle roofs, which helps.

Here are some pics of the hillside on the other side of Big Tujunga Canyon as it burned earlier today. These were shot from my next-door neighbor's back yard with a 300 mm telephoto. The flames are about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile away.

The pics are pretty self explanatory. They show a fairly small spot fire working its way up the hill. A lot of the flames were obscured by smoke.

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More in the next post...
 
And the rest of the pics from the neighbor's back yard...

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And one shot showing the windshield of my Lexus after being parked in the driveway for about 12 hours...

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Yes that what I remember looking at. One fire there were water dropping helocopters, seven of em, just over my back fence. Another neighbor and I took an Ice chest full of water and soft drinks to em. We spent all day watchin em do there job, Those guys sure got big cajonas. Another fire got real exciting when the forest service started a backfire about 150 feet from my property. Scary stuff.

Stay safe Vaughn, I don't envy you.
 
that is more low stuff than big trees huh? don, i have seen the helcopters and the big red and white tanker planes..they were flyun over my head while i set in a tree stand waitin for an elk in oregon....all of the folks working in a wild fire are top notch folk!!!! stay safe VAUGHN, AND BLOW HARD THE OTHER DIRECTION TO DIVERT IT AWAY:thumb:
 
My cousin called from Corona last night. She and her 97 year old mother are OK. She said the fires are about 50 and 25 miles from her but things are smoky.
Vaughn: good pictures, that fire even looks HOT from here. Take care.
 
Vaughn, put a big propeller on that there lathe and blow the flames away!!!!! I can see it now, a bunch of lathes available after forest fires as they were used to extinguish the blaze. Hmmmm, new meaning to the term fire sale!:rofl::rofl::rofl: Do be safe, in our prayers.
 
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