What a weekend. My wife called me at work on Saturday to tell me that my best friend was evacuating his parents in North San Bernardino. I got a hold of him twenty minutes later on my way to help and they had just left the house b/c the heat and embers were becoming too intense. They left so quick that they only got the pets and a few personal items. The garage and front doors were left wide open and luggage was still in the driveway. Fire moved through the neighborhood and the neighbor’s house had just caught fire as they drove out. They evacuated to their shop a couple miles away.
By the time I got to the shop ten minutes later, the smoke was so thick you could hardly breath. We decided to be cautious and evacuate the shop almost as fast as we had decided to use it for shelter. It’s amazing how fast things change when fire and wind get together. We brought everyone to my house, Jeff, his wife and daughter (who were already living w/ us), his parents, their dog, cat, and parrot. Later, we took in another family and lady whose houses were threatened.
The fire above my house on Saturday night.
About 10 PM we decided to go up to the neighborhood and see what was left. It looked like a war zone. We had to go through side streets and around road blocks to get up there, houses and trees still on fire, some just smoldering piles of rubble and some sitting completely untouched in the middle of the destruction. All the power was out so the only light came from fire and the occasional fire vehicle working it’s way back to the front. When we reached their street everything was gone, except their and their neighbor’s houses. What an eerie sight, these two untouched homes being lit up by the surrounding devastation. Relief came over us followed by the instinct to go into action to preserve the blessing we were given.
We spent the entire night fighting the burning remains around the two lone houses w/ hoses, shovels and sledge hammers. We kept constant watch on the hills around the neighborhood, the fire had gone around and was heading back towards us from a different direction. Early in the morning there were flare ups that had us very nervous but by daybreak we were pretty confident that the two houses were out of danger.
I went back to my house to get a couple hours of sleep and by eight o’clock Sunday I was back on the roof watching the fire above my house at the edge of the 330. An hour later it crossed, and within a half hour it was a half mile from my Dads house in East Highlands. My Dad is in Antarctica right now so I called my step Mom and told her to meet me at her house so we could start thinking about getting things ready. She lives a mile from me and by the time I got there I decided that now was the time to pack up. We loaded all the trucks and cars we had and headed to my house. We had time to get a lot of their things including my Dads 911 and the new SSI exchangers that we hadn’t installed yet.
The Pet count at my house: 1 dog, 2 cats, 1 Parrot, 1 desert tortoise
The approaching fire.
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the fire from my roof and the winds, or lack of, were very good to us. By the next morning the fire had moved in closer and it seemed that on cue the helicopters showed up to fight the advancing line. They were pulling water right out of the small community lake behind their house and by 2 PM Monday it seemed that the fire was completely halted. We went back and moved everything back into her house and headed home for something to eat.
The helicopters behind my Dad’s house.
7 PM, all hell broke loose. The fire had come back from the other direction and there was a wall of flames a mile wide heading back towards East Highlands. We ran over there and packed up again as the Sheriff helicopter circled the neighborhood telling people to leave. We could feel the heat and the ash was like snow flurries through the streets. This time we had to leave my Dads Porsche. As the fire ate its way down the hill they began setting backfires to meet it. Thankfully the wind held back and the backfires were effective. We watched again from my roof at the sight of darkness turning bright red and orange. We were so exhausted and by 2 AM we decided that there was nothing else we could do but try and get some rest.
We woke this morning to snow like ash everywhere. The smoke so thick that the daylight was nothing more than an orange glowing overcast. My Dads house is fine and so far I believe that no houses were lost in the neighborhood. I still cannot believe that the winds held back for the past two days and know that the whole scenario would have been very different if they hadn’t.
At my friends parent’s house, they have been trying to get things around them cleaned up. They are electrical contractors so they have been setting up generators for everyone left standing in the area so that they will have power. Looting has been a big concern and they have caught a couple, mostly teenage kids. The police have been diligent and very responsive to calls about looting and it’s being kept in check. Not much worse than looting IMO, they should be shot.
I still have coworkers and friends that live in Crestline, Arrowhead, Running Springs, and Green Valley Lake that are anxiously awaiting word on what the fire does next. The entire mountain is still at risk and hopefully the winds will hold back long enough for the fire crews to stop it.
I’ll post more pictures later. Good luck to everyone else out there being threatened.