WhiteThaiGer
10-28-2003, 05:43AM
JackSilb said...
p.s. The fire in San Diego is pretty ugly. Most of the highways around our house are closed. The sky is gray as it was about to rain. The sun breaks in with a orange color.
Marcelo's house is fill of ashes, Uwe called me that he was going to Ramona to help a friend to pack. It is hot and smell burn like @##$@#$.
Scott Brady said...
The fire suck! I am in Claremont, CA right now, and the fires are burning on the mountains as I write this...
What a trip! Our 'trip' out to Ramona to help our friends pack and take a load to safety evolved into somethingmuch, much more substantial, we stayed 2 days. It was no 4x4 trip, but what a trip is was! No one should have to go through stuff like this and just because some http://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/skull.gif braindeadguyhttp://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/skull.gif starts a search fire (if reports we are hearing are true)on a day that was know to be a Santa Ana wind day. You can read the details elsewhere. Here is a little of the experience, there is a lot more to tell...a campfire or BBQ would be the appropriate timehttp://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/cool.gif
Sunday morning it started to 'snow' ashes around our house. We saw the clouds to the east and checked the TV. We then started calling friends we thought might be in the path, including Jack. (couldn't find Al's phone number) Everyone said they were ok, but our friends in Ramona were packing. That sounded serious and we decided to check if we couldn't help afterall. We didn't want to add to a problem by creating unnecessary traffic, so we decided if we notice traffic pattern that differs from the norm we'd turn back home. Traffic was normal and we got to Ramona like on any other day. The difference were the smoke plumes to the east, north and south!!
By this time the fire had gotten closer and we immediately put an action plan into effect. First thing was to move a car with the most important stuff into the safety zone. On the return trip from that only residents were allowed into area!
We deployed hoses around the house, double checked that we had a 12ft perimeter around the house without brush or easily flameable items, filled a bucket with water and soaked bandanas in it (for breathing in smoke). We then cut fire brakes with the tractor (properties are several acres in this area). Now all we could do was wait. It was agonizing. First things looked ok, but then we heard the propane tanks explode on the otherside of a ridge about half a mile awhile, that gave the fire a big boost and it came of the ridge, and it came fast!! We send the girls away to a safer position. At this point all of us thought that the chances of saving the house were not in our favor at all.A gut wrenching feeling even for us, one can only imagine the feelings of the property owners. The fire wall came, fast, hot and with a very special, kind of wind noise I will never forget.I saw 'fire twisters' shoot up. Fortunately the fire brakes helped and the wall slowed down to a crawl as there was hardly any fuel (200m in the back and 50m at the sides of the house). This slow grass fire we were able to handle with hoses and shovels. The closest the fire burned was 10ft to thegarage. All day we didn't see any firefighters or air support, they were just too busy with more densely populated areas, but when the fire came to our ridge the tankers showed up and bombed us several times! Thespotter plane we had seen several timesduring the afternoon had not forgotton ushttp://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/jumpin.gif What a sight to see these low-flying tanker planes open their gates and discharge. It really helped in keeping the fire back. We had made it, saved the house! I am convinced the house would be gone if we had left.
We spend the evening to go after little flare-ups around the property, we then took watch shifts through the nightto keep an eye on things. Monday morning we were going to leave, but the fire flared up in the east of the city, about a mile from us, not good, we pepared for an attack from the other side. By early afternoon the tankers had the situation under control and we finally decided it was save for us to go home.
Some impressions (during the most intense fight we didn't waste time with picture taking... ):
Before (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=815),
After (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=816), the morning after, ground was still warm, sun light was discolored by dust clouds -> unreal atmosphere
Flames (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=817) and more flames (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=818) coming, fast!
This helped a lot (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=821)! We got about 4 hitssimilar to thisaround the house, CDF http://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/supercool.gif The way the appeared out of the smoke, low and fast, these guys know there stuff, the lead plane was extremely low! This is the little 2 engine plane (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=820) that preceeds the tanker by about 30s, he feels out the air/turbulance situation and decides on the drop. They made quite a number of passes without a drop.
The whole experience was unreal, like a bad dream. I really feel for the hundreds of families for which the fight was lost. As we were leaving the restricted area we drove past a long line of cars with people waiting for the authorities to open more area and let them in to see if they still had a home. These fires really suck and getting this close and personal with one was a tough experience in many aspects.
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Post Edited By Moderator (JackSilb) : 11/17/2003 6:27:14 AM GMT
p.s. The fire in San Diego is pretty ugly. Most of the highways around our house are closed. The sky is gray as it was about to rain. The sun breaks in with a orange color.
Marcelo's house is fill of ashes, Uwe called me that he was going to Ramona to help a friend to pack. It is hot and smell burn like @##$@#$.
Scott Brady said...
The fire suck! I am in Claremont, CA right now, and the fires are burning on the mountains as I write this...
What a trip! Our 'trip' out to Ramona to help our friends pack and take a load to safety evolved into somethingmuch, much more substantial, we stayed 2 days. It was no 4x4 trip, but what a trip is was! No one should have to go through stuff like this and just because some http://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/skull.gif braindeadguyhttp://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/skull.gif starts a search fire (if reports we are hearing are true)on a day that was know to be a Santa Ana wind day. You can read the details elsewhere. Here is a little of the experience, there is a lot more to tell...a campfire or BBQ would be the appropriate timehttp://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/cool.gif
Sunday morning it started to 'snow' ashes around our house. We saw the clouds to the east and checked the TV. We then started calling friends we thought might be in the path, including Jack. (couldn't find Al's phone number) Everyone said they were ok, but our friends in Ramona were packing. That sounded serious and we decided to check if we couldn't help afterall. We didn't want to add to a problem by creating unnecessary traffic, so we decided if we notice traffic pattern that differs from the norm we'd turn back home. Traffic was normal and we got to Ramona like on any other day. The difference were the smoke plumes to the east, north and south!!
By this time the fire had gotten closer and we immediately put an action plan into effect. First thing was to move a car with the most important stuff into the safety zone. On the return trip from that only residents were allowed into area!
We deployed hoses around the house, double checked that we had a 12ft perimeter around the house without brush or easily flameable items, filled a bucket with water and soaked bandanas in it (for breathing in smoke). We then cut fire brakes with the tractor (properties are several acres in this area). Now all we could do was wait. It was agonizing. First things looked ok, but then we heard the propane tanks explode on the otherside of a ridge about half a mile awhile, that gave the fire a big boost and it came of the ridge, and it came fast!! We send the girls away to a safer position. At this point all of us thought that the chances of saving the house were not in our favor at all.A gut wrenching feeling even for us, one can only imagine the feelings of the property owners. The fire wall came, fast, hot and with a very special, kind of wind noise I will never forget.I saw 'fire twisters' shoot up. Fortunately the fire brakes helped and the wall slowed down to a crawl as there was hardly any fuel (200m in the back and 50m at the sides of the house). This slow grass fire we were able to handle with hoses and shovels. The closest the fire burned was 10ft to thegarage. All day we didn't see any firefighters or air support, they were just too busy with more densely populated areas, but when the fire came to our ridge the tankers showed up and bombed us several times! Thespotter plane we had seen several timesduring the afternoon had not forgotton ushttp://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/jumpin.gif What a sight to see these low-flying tanker planes open their gates and discharge. It really helped in keeping the fire back. We had made it, saved the house! I am convinced the house would be gone if we had left.
We spend the evening to go after little flare-ups around the property, we then took watch shifts through the nightto keep an eye on things. Monday morning we were going to leave, but the fire flared up in the east of the city, about a mile from us, not good, we pepared for an attack from the other side. By early afternoon the tankers had the situation under control and we finally decided it was save for us to go home.
Some impressions (during the most intense fight we didn't waste time with picture taking... ):
Before (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=815),
After (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=816), the morning after, ground was still warm, sun light was discolored by dust clouds -> unreal atmosphere
Flames (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=817) and more flames (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=818) coming, fast!
This helped a lot (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=821)! We got about 4 hitssimilar to thisaround the house, CDF http://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/emoticons/supercool.gif The way the appeared out of the smoke, low and fast, these guys know there stuff, the lead plane was extremely low! This is the little 2 engine plane (http://www.rxtx.com:8085/4wdtrips/photogallery/details.php?image_id=820) that preceeds the tanker by about 30s, he feels out the air/turbulance situation and decides on the drop. They made quite a number of passes without a drop.
The whole experience was unreal, like a bad dream. I really feel for the hundreds of families for which the fight was lost. As we were leaving the restricted area we drove past a long line of cars with people waiting for the authorities to open more area and let them in to see if they still had a home. These fires really suck and getting this close and personal with one was a tough experience in many aspects.
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Post Edited By Moderator (JackSilb) : 11/17/2003 6:27:14 AM GMT