Fighting Fires in San Diego

First of all, hats off to all the firefighters, police and emergency workers here in California. They've been working tirelessly for 4 days and their job is far from over.

On Sunday and Monday, the only fire fighting that was being done was at ground level. Winds were gusting at from 70-100 mph and prevented the water-dropping helicopters and fixed wing aircraft from flying. Finally, late on Monday afternoon, some were able to take off. After the sun goes down, they're done flying. On Tuesday, they were able to go up and start work, both civilian and military helicopters. We also got word that the big C-130s had arrived in California and were loading up with fire retardant, but none were seen in the air. Why?.... Well, after the big Cedar fire 4 years ago, it was discovered that due to a law passed in the 1930s, civilian government was unable to make use of the tremendous military assets here in San Diego. Since then, things have changed, but the new law needs some fine tuning. There were plenty of assets, but each military helicopter and plane is required to have a trained California spotter on board in order to fly and all the spotters were occupied with currently flying aircraft. That effectively grounded the much-needed C-130s. Duncan Hunter, one of the local Congressmen, started asking questions and eventually, after contacting the commander of the Pacific Fleet and our local and state authorities, he managed to arrange for waivers of the restrictions and now only one spotter is needed for an entire grouping of aircraft. At last the big guns are arriving and making some progress.

Although fires are still raging on the eastern front, the western front is largely under control and many residents are being allowed back into their neighborhoods. The city of San Marcos where our son and daughter in law live has given the all-clear to the entire city so they'll be able to head home whenever they're ready.

San Diego Fire

It was a warm Sunday afternoon, the windows were open to catch the ocean breeze and I began to smell something. At first I thought someone was smoking a cigar in the alley that serves as access to our garage and divides our condo building from the one behind us. Curious, I went downstairs to the kitchen/family room where I could get a better view out a bigger window and asked my husband if he smelled it. He said he smelled wood smoke. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, he thought someone had their fireplace lit, but I pointed out that no one builds a fire on an 85 degree day and given that we were having Santa Ana winds, it could be only one thing......wildfire.

We've lived through many fire seasons in Southern California, so we turned on the news to see where it was located and if we should have any concerns. The fire most likely to have an effect on us, the Witch Creek fire, was over an hour's drive away so we went out to dinner and figured we'd catch up on its progress the next morning. As we left our daughter's house after dinner, we noticed that ash was falling like a light snow so we knew the wind had to be blowing pretty hard and that this fire had the potential for spreading rapidly much as the one of October 2003. Still, we went to bed. At 4:30 AM one of our smoke alarms beeped twice. Not sure why. Unable to sleep, I turned on the local news to see how things had progressed and was stunned at how far the fire had moved during only a few hours. In addition, a smaller fire had started near our son's home in the San Marcos area around 25 miles north of us. I watched the news for a bit more than an hour, wondering if I should call my son to see if he had received an evacuation notice. Then, one news report said that those people who used only cell phones in their homes would not be notified of an emergency using the local "Reverse 911" system. I began dialing my phone.

At 6:00 AM, Monday morning, my son and his wife began packing and a bit over 2 hours later they were on the road and heading south to stay at our place. All day long we watched news reports, especially those that dealt with the fire in San Marcos and the westward spread of the Witch Creek fire. Our son's neighborhood was in a transitional zone where it was never really clear whether or not it was in a mandatory or voluntary evacuation area, however, their decision to evacuate and stay with us was based on the possibility that the north/south routes through San Diego County could close at any time. We were never overly worried that their place would burn, but with 70 mph winds, anything can happen.

Our daughter and her husband stayed at their home and remained vigilant throughout the day. They live in an area near that which burned four years ago and also near a canyon very attractive to wildfire moving rapidly toward the coastline. Oddly, they were never even designated as a voluntary evacuation zone, even though they were surrounded on three sides by mandatory zones. It was a smoky night at their place, but they were never in any danger.

Where my husband and I live, we never even had the high winds. We're in a very sheltered spot near La Jolla and the wind splits as it nears us and rushes down the canyon leading to Torrey Pines as well as the one toward Pacific Beach. We opened our home to our son, his wife and their three cats and were preparing to take in our daughter, her husband, three cats and their snake. In the end we were just four adults and four cats.

I think this is one of the largest wildfires I've ever experienced. Looking at a map, I realized that a combination of the burn and evacuation areas of all the fires easily covered half of San Diego County. Over 500,000 people were under mandatory evacuation and many others, like our son and his wife, left their homes even though evacuation was only voluntary.

All day on Tuesday we again watched news reports to see if the firefighters would gain control over these fires of if the weather would change enough to alter wind patterns and somehow halt the rapid progress of the fires as they made their way west to the Pacific Ocean. Earlier in the week, predictions were for little or no relief until Wednesday or Thursday, but early Tuesday morning, some coastal areas were seeing signs of a returning see breeze. At our home, we had no wind and a return of cool temperatures with our usual morning humidity. Then, by Tuesday afternoon, the wind began to change, many evacuation orders were lifted and some people began returning to their neighborhoods.

It's Wednesday morning we awoke to news that some progress has been made in slowing down or even halting the westward progression of the fires and many neighborhoods are open for residents to return to their homes. Others, however, are being evacuated, this time on the eastern edge of the fires. Some fires are even combining as they burn closer to each other. There are also new fires erupting on Camp Pendleton Marine Base and the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 are closed. This has caused a huge backup of traffic that has to detour east on state route 78 through San Marcos for access to northbound I-15. We also learned from looking at the official county disaster map that our son's home is now included in a mandatory evacuation area so he and his family will be staying with us a bit longer.

The latest weather reports are optimistic. Santa Ana winds are abating and by Friday the marine layer, that high level of fog we get every evening, will be returning.

The Return

There's a crater in Arizona

We took our time heading home from Denver. On our first day, we drove south on I-25 for around 5 hours and got to our first stop in Las Vegas, New Mexico in the early afternoon. It's a very nice town, but after seeing all the signs along the highway promoting their historic district, we were a bit disappointed to find that it was largely deserted except for the old Plaza Hotel in the town square. We did have a nice meal there at the Landmark Grill.

On our second day, we spent another five hours on the road and along the way had an interesting surprise in Albuquerque, NM. They were having their yearly Balloon Fiesta. As we neared the city, we saw hundreds of balloons taking off. Quite a sight.

A few hours later, we reached our first destination of the day at the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park. Wow. So many colors in the rock strata that constitute the Painted Desert, but I was really impressed with the Petrified Forest. We took several hikes on our tour there. My favorite was Blue Mesa. It's a bit over a mile hike down into a ravine where thousands of petrified logs have washed out of the hillsides. There's no picking things up for souvenirs so I bought my piece of petrified wood at the gift shop. They check your car on the way out of the park, too.

Although we had allowed three hours for touring the park, we ended up spending four hours there and eventually ended our day in Holbrook, AZ where we enjoyed a steak dinner at the Butterfield Stage Company on old Route 66.

Day three on the road began with a short 30 mile hop over to Meteor Crater. That's an impressive spot. It's over two miles across and we were told that the bottom of the crater could accommodate 40 football games simultaneously. We took a hike along the rim and learned a lot from our guide, Harold, about crater formation.

When we were done exploring Meteor Crater, we got back on the road and completed our drive to my brother's place in Phoenix. Had a great time there, spent the night and, on day four, made our way back home to San Diego.

Day 2

This post is a day late again. At the end of our second day on the road I was barely awake enough to eat dinner and crashed soon after. But here is an account of our journey.

We began our day at a motel in Gallup, New Mexico. This time we managed to get on the road by 7:30 AM. Heading east on I-40, we were accompanied by dozens of long haul truckers all the way to Albuquerque. We passed a number of places we’d like to see on our return trip. One is the meteor crater in Arizona and another is the Petrified Forest.

In Albuquerque we made a right turn and got onto I-25 heading north to Denver. Thankfully we left the trucks behind on I-40. It’s a pretty drive and after close to an hour we made it to Santa Fe. The approach to Santa Fe is pretty spectacular. I-25 climbs to the top of a mesa and then an entire valley opens up to reveal Santa Fe. As you drive north through the town, you get into Rocky Mountain foothills and more and more trees. The road then winds through more foothills until it opens up onto a vast plain and you come to the little town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. This is a cattle town and still retains remnants of the Old West. It's also been made famous by radio host Don Imus since his ranch is somewhere in the area. We stopped in Las Vegas for lunch and gas and then it was my turn to drive.

My turn at the wheel took us through lots and lots of cattle range. It reminded me a lot of driving through California’s central valley on bigger. Lots bigger. Apparently, I-25 was built along the old Santa Fe Trail so everywhere we stopped there were signposts with tourist information. We’ll have more time to meander on our return to San Diego so we may do some exploring.

Just shy of the New Mexico/Colorado state line, Dave took over driving duties again and stayed at the wheel the rest of the way to Denver. Although there was a short range of mountains to cross at the state line, at Trinidad, Colorado we descended down to the Great Plains. It’s quite a sight. The Rocky Mountains rise to the west and off to the east is endless rangeland. At Colorado Springs we spied Pike’s Peak and shortly after that we reached our destination.

Now we're in Denver and will stay a week working on a few projects around the house for Dave's sister. The weather has turned cold and windy so I think we'll tackle inside jobs for now. I should be warmer tomorrow.