Fires in San Diego
 

Best wishes to fellow Pelicans and citizens of San Diego as they deal with effects of the fires in the county. Stay safe and take care of each other.

So far the fires are well north of us and they are really being battled by the on ground and air people. There was one house last night with a camera crew under their shade awning watching the fire burn through a canyon. The cover had dozens and dozens of small holes from flying embers letting light through but it did not burn! Now in San Diego county, all home awning have to be like that and I thought it would have been great to have back in'07. There were also several people who used their gas powered pool fire pumps and real fire hoses to keep the flames down the sides of hills! So they really do work it seems!

The high winds combined with very low humidity are making things difficult to gauge. Our old community (South San Marcos) has been evacuated and many of our friends are stuck in traffic. Keeping our fingers crossed that the fires stay clear of our 'new' community. We are packed just in case - spot fires happen quicker than services can react.

It really is incredible what the wind can do to a fire. I was near the Bernardo fire when it started yesterday morning and took this pic after it had been burning 10 minutes.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...513_111358.jpg

And this one 10 minutes later:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...513_113820.jpg

This was the view of the San Marcos fire from our house yesterday afternoon. A few hours after this there was a lot of air tanker activity, and around dusk a DC-10 flew directly over our house on approach to drop retardant. Really impressive.

Thoughts and prayers to those more directly affected.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1400163374.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1400163393.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1400163411.jpg

Checking in from Carlsbad. We are ok, but a few families lost their homes.

Fire is 60% contained here. San Marcos is still ongoing.

Stay safe everyone!!!

Had to close my Carlsbad bakery yesterday and keeping it closed today as well. So far so good on the home front, but I back up to a preserve and the San Marcos fire is only a couple miles to the North East.

I'll be donating cake to the various shelters today as it's the best I can do to help...

I texted Jim. No answer. Is he close to the fire?


Sent via Jedi mind trick.

Best of luck to those in the north County affected by the fires. I'm amazed there hasn't been any fire activity in the east County where I'm located, but I'm thinking our time is coming sooner than we want. I'm also amazed there haven't been any fires in places like the inland empire, L.A. area, and other places like the foot hill areas of the San Joaquin Valley. It's great to see they've made such great strides in coordination of resources and agencies, night drops, and communications. No comfort to those who have lost their homes, but those improvements have no doubt otherwise saved others. I'm thinking we're in for a loooong fire season of potentially large losses.

They brought in the big boys.

http://media.utsandiego.com/img/phot...3_r940x635.jpg

We had fires on three sides. Closed the shop early to avoid the smoke.
Payers go out to friends and neighbors effected by this tragedy.

I can't imagine breathing all that crud, as if it's not bad enough already.

Stay safe.

Thanks man! (insert bro hug here) The Carlsbad fire is less than 2 miles away. Daughter's friend's BF lost his house and another friend of a friend had just moved out...the house they sold is ashes.:(

pretty sure these will be arson...

Any determination on how any of the fires started? If arson....burn them at the stake!

I grew up in San Diego, my folks and my wife's folks are living there now. We're keeping everyone in our prayers

And...Dang they use DC-10s now? That must be quite a sight. I remember seeing a CDF B-17 fly over the house when I was a kid

bernardo fire missed us by about 2 mi, had the suburban packed and waiting, all i had left was to roll the Porsche out of the garage and leave, luckily didn't need to, stay safe everyone

It is!

DC10 Supertanker vs. KUSI photog - YouTube

http://youtu.be/JHz5kYv3unM

Seems like that DC10 dropped its load a bit early....

They make pills for that...

Sunset from our house looking NW with the stratified layers of smoke.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1400215904.jpg

Telephoto shot showing a rising smoke plume to the right of the base of the hill.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1400216021.jpg

Maybe the prettiest sunset I ever saw was looking North from the roof of my apartment in San Francisco on October 17, 1989. Goodyear blimp appeared to be ablaze, hanging there above the Golden Gate, which was partially obscured by smoke from the burning Marina district. Had a camera but no film, damn.
I was just thinking that. A lot of different fires going. Is it an unhappy confluence of events, a firebug or both?