T1B

Evacuated Mikey? Lilac fire out of control.

Unless Mikey lives on the far north side of town I think he's pretty safe. Murrieta, OTOH, is fucked!

While I hope Michael exits unscathed, I hold no such compassion for his modem/router...



:|

Still here but not out of danger. The fire is moving west on the south side of the 76. We’re about 2 miles north. Glad they finished the widening project.

Fucking SDG&E got blamed for the last fire when some of their lines got blown down in the high wind. This time they just cut our power so we can’t monitor the news.

Mikey wrote:Still here but not out of danger. The fire is moving west on the south side of the 76. We’re about 2 miles north. Glad they finished the widening project.

Fucking SDG&E got blamed for the last fire when some of their lines got blown down in the high wind. This time they just cut our power so we can’t monitor the news.

That has been determined to be the cause of a lot of these fires. Poor line maintenance. I think there has been a lawsuit filed somewhere. I have public power. Their line maintenance is impeccable and my rates are 30% of what my neighbors are. Of course the linemen make $ 50 or more an hour.

Bat chief just said that it's possible for this fire to make it all the way to the ocean.

Had to check out of the house and into a “Quality” Inn. Closest available room was about 30 miles down the road. Fucking shithole by the looks of it. I’m waiting in line to check in.

I just hope I still have a house tomorrow.

Mike,

You just posted in the last few minutes, shoot me a PM within a 1/2 hour.

Three people and two cats in this shitty hotel room and my truck smells like a fucking campfire.

Have to look at the bright side...I have a pretty good excuse to skip work in the morning.

Good luck bud. Fingers crossed for ya here in snowy South Texas.

Wishing you good luck.

Hope casa Miquel weathers the storm OK, but it wouldn't break my heart if your our magic shade tree burns to the ground.

You didn't evacuate any of the coons? I guess they'll be OK if they stay in the middle of the pool.

Mikey wrote:Three people and two cats in this shitty hotel room and my truck smells like a fucking campfire.

Have to look at the bright side...I have a pretty good excuse to skip work in the morning.

And your family is alive too!

Yo Mikey..sit rep please...

He's cool, chiil'in in a van down by the river. Much to your chagrin S'Holic the magic shade tree is still going to be an object of your disdain.

Much better circumstances than hosting my wife's step-mother who had to bug out of the same area yesterday afternoon.

To her credit, for whatever reason, she seemed to think of packing a couple of cases of fine wines from her collection. Yeah, we have powered through some of them.

News is that up to 35 race horses died, burned/asphyxiated, at a training-boarding complex in the valley. They did get most out, a couple hundred or so.

Here's to "powering through" refugee step inlaw's adult beverage stocks!!!!!

Guess there is a silver lining to every cloud.

Derron wrote:Yo Mikey..sit rep please...

Had to go dark for a while because they turned off our power on Thursday. Decided to leave Thursday night because the fire had jumped the highway and was burning up a hill maybe a mile from our house. I was making frequent reconnaissance runs to monitor the situation and this was a fast moving fire due to wind and humidity. Came back yesterday not sure if we were going to stay or not. Everything seemed pretty cool except for lack of power (and internet), but power was supposed to be back today at noon. Then at noon they announced that it wouldn’t be back until Monday. Then I went to get ice and a camp stove. Then the lights came back on.

We now have power but no broadband. Lots of road closures - you have to know the back roads to get in or out or even around town.

I’ve learned a lot the past couple of days including renewed respect for firefighters - they have done an unbelievable job - and for the San Diego County Sheriff’s and CHP. Big props to all of them. Big not props to SDG&E. Will follow up later with more details and pics.

Thanks to T1B for all good thoughts. We’ve been pretty lucky so far but the wind is supposed to kick up again tomorrow. I haven’t unloaded the truck yet.

Just to add some perspective. This fire was (is) catastrophic and pretty fucking terrifying, especially to those that have been burned out. But really it’s a fraction of what happened in Napa and Sonoma, and what’s still happening in Ventura and Ojai.

We had something like 103 companies and 900 firefighters from multiple states, 18 helicopters and 5 arial tankers all involved at the peak. This seems like a big operation to me but they seemed totally organized. Just awesome.

Seriously. Do the world a favor and just kill yourself.

schmick wrote:Most firemen in California are conservatives, likely Trump supporters, the people who support the likes of jerry brown, kamala harris, nancy pelosi and that lot should leave all of their voting signs up in their yards so the firemen can save the good people's homes before saving the liberals homes.

Die in a fire

You could fight half of them and burn the houses of the other half down.

Glad to hear things are ok as of your post. Hoping it stays that way for ya.

Are the air assets only part time? I have been hearing about 70 mph winds. No way they are running those 747s and helicopters in those canyons with winds that high.

Left Seater wrote:Glad to hear things are ok as of your post. Hoping it stays that way for ya.

Are the air assets only part time? I have been hearing about 70 mph winds. No way they are running those 747s and helicopters in those canyons with winds that high.

They weren't flying the fixed-wing a/c in the Thomas Fire when the winds were 50mph. It wasn't so much safety, but more of the difficulty of accurately dropping the load & not having it blown off-course.

Left Seater wrote:Glad to hear things are ok as of your post. Hoping it stays that way for ya.

Are the air assets only part time? I have been hearing about 70 mph winds. No way they are running those 747s and helicopters in those canyons with winds that high.

The Lilac fire is mostly in a wide river valley (San Luis Rey River) that has a four lane divided highway running along the north side in the eastern part and crosses over to the other side several miles from the ocean. There is (was) a lot of vegetation in the wide riverbed that pretty much dries up in the summer. When the Santa Ana conditions come up the hot dry winds come down off the mountains and get funneled right through that valley. The intensity this week was pretty much unprecedented.

On one of my reconnaissance missions on Thursday afternoon I was standing on the north side of the highway talking with some folks watching the fire maybe half a mile away when a four engine jet (don’t know the type) flew about 200 feet over our heads and dropped a load of red chemical retardant with pretty much pinpoint accuracy. Wish I had my camera out for that.

They had some helicopters flying at night too.

Not a whole lotta 4 engine jets left in service. Probably a 747 or maybe an old 707 that is good for this purpose.


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smackaholic wrote:Not a whole lotta 4 engine jets left in service. Probably a 747 or maybe an old 707 that is good for this purpose.


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Not a 747. I could have been mistaken but it looked like it had four engines under its wings. Maybe not jets - Cal Fire operates at least one DC7.

It might have been a BAe 146. Apparently Cal Fire operates at least one of those.

Both the DC-7 and the C-130 have 4 turboprops.

The 747 Supertanker was originally built by Evergreen Aviation (down the road from me). They went bankrupt, and someone bought the Supertankers (and all of their other 747s and their massive 747 junkyard in Arizona... or all that aren't art of the museum, anyhow). I'm not sure if the new owners have put them back in service yet.

I think most of the aerial tankers used these days are DC-7s and C-130s.

Cal fire still flies the Evergreen 747.

Moving Sale wrote:Cal fire still flies the Evergreen 747.

Cool. I know the new company was transferring the tanks and equipment into newer 747 frames, wasn't sure if they were airborne again.

Damn, Mikey, that sux. Be careful, man.


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I think the worst is over for the Lilac fire, but good luck anyway Mikey.

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