On June 23, the wife and I took a trip out to San Francisco to be alone. This was a first vacation alone in 23 years...been raising a family. As we were boarding the plane my oldest daughter sent us some images showing a plume of smoke some miles behind where we live. Two days latter we received a frantic call from my daughter saying that there was a wall of fire coming towards the house. I was talking on another line to a friend who said the fire was some miles away from where I lived, but when I got back I talked to a neighbor who is with the CSFD. He said that he was up there when the flames came over the ridge and that is was a few miles from us, then a fire storm spawned and the flames started jumping the ridges. The flames were 100 to 200 feet high, street lights went on, and the flames consume everything in it path. The fireman said his was up there with others to contain the fire, but the ended up running for their lives.
Our neighborhood never received an official evacuation until 3 hours too late, fortunately my daughter followed the advice of those in the hood and evacuated with them. It was all she could do to get the pets, safe, important papers, and my Martin guitar out. Upon our return, a gracious friend put the wife and me up, along with the cats, for three days. Dolo stayed with her main squeeze and the dogs. My main concern was that I took just enough meds with me for the trip and a couple of days. Consequently, I was critically low (I am "permanently and totally disabled with service connection.") They were letting some in who lived in certain parts, but our development seems to be lost in the grand scheme. We took a chance and I explained my situation, flashed my military ID, and they eventually let us in. We had access to the entire burn area.
I was there when Mt St. Helens blew, but what we saw here humbled me even more. Many friends and associates of ours had their homes reduced to piles of ash. The fire came within four blocks or our home, but it did set an open space on fire directly behind us. They put this out very quickly. It was very upsetting to see the homes of people we knew, friends of our daughters destroyed so quickly. It has reduced me to an emotional mess. Days of not knowing if I would have a home, seeing friends loose everything, etc, etc, etc. We have been finding ashes in our backyard the size of dollar bills, and everything has a fine coating of soot on it. We thought we would have smoke damage, but we came out rather well. The interior of the house has zero odor, and no ashes in it.
The good news is that last night we received some heavy rains. It was a hot day, hitting about 97 degrees, but the rain was a god send. We no longer had a smoky odor about us, but a odor of having just doused a campfire with water. More rain is expected, and so now we have to worry about mud slides and flash floods. They suspect arson--so do I (the sky was clear the day the fire started.) There were also looters coming into the neighborhoods and just trashing homes (slitting furniture, knocking over book shelves, and just senselessly ransacking homes.) We were not hit, but I talked to a MP who was wearing his .45 semi, and he said that they had been chasing people off the ridge behind us.
Thankfully, all are safe, the home is intact, and only a couple of people up the street were murdered (fire from arson.) It could have been far worse. The city as a whole really was lucky, this fire could have been 5X as destructive had the winds continued. I tip my hat to the first responders. I saw home that the porches caught fire and they saved them, and there we many other such examples. I flew back with a couple of Hot Shots, and they said they were going to be doing 20/8 shifts...20 hours on and 8 off. Hey, even Obama walked our streets.
Below are some images taken from our hood. I did not take any of the photos, but just to give you an idea of what we were up against.
Below: Fire is moving in. You can read the street sign "Centennial", that is the street we live off of and a block from our home. This is just across the street where we live. A elementary school in on the left, and was used after the fire as a dump location. The white and green house that you see had it roof blown off a few months ago.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fco-bw.com%2FWaldo%2F4fea7de047222.image.jpg&hash=72793705d49f2d9284fae02691fa610f058d500f)
Below: About a mile from us.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fco-bw.com%2FWaldo%2F4fea7d7481842.image.jpg&hash=7489bd31909aff876d090275a0c0bd5d99fc1f59)
Below: Just up the street where many of our friends lived.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fco-bw.com%2FWaldo%2F241431_web_APTOPIX-Western-Wildf_Ball-1-.jpg&hash=d22ab6d0fd5e905a8244ba347c68854fdd1614dc)
Below: A few blocks south of us as the fire was moving in:
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fco-bw.com%2FWaldo%2FWaldo-Canyon-Fire-in-Colorado-6.jpg&hash=9dfaa0b87c670b2edeb5912b42811ad7e7c17099)
Below: Just a small example of what it looks like if we go up the street a few blocks. It does not even begin to document the severity of the destruction.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fco-bw.com%2FWaldo%2FREU-OBAMA1.jpg&hash=3bbebdf37e25dc9e9e2952c29a5a7bcf602448df)
