As you may have noticed, it was touch-and-go this weekend for many folks in Southern California. For those of us who live in Orange County, it was pretty serious. Just in case, I packed up photo albums, keepsakes, computer backup files, documents.
Luckily, we'd only recently moved in, so many of those items were still in boxes and easy to find. Also, there's quite a bit of capacity in the 135i, especially because the rear seats fold down.
As threatening as things looked in Fullerton, we didn't have to leave under threat of fire, but the smoke from fires in neighboring Brea and Yorba Linda got really thick once the winds shifted. I had to change the filters in our HVAC system twice in 12 hours and close the outside fresh-air intake.
By the next morning, the sun was blocked out completely (facing North at the corner of Harbor and Chapman). Sorry about the cell-phone photo.
While things looked bad for us in Fullerton, it was much worse in Yorba Linda where Dan lives. He came over to our place for a beer, some fresh air, and news download.
Here are a few of his dramatic photos from his neiborhood. All the following photos were shot and captioned by Dan and his wife, Tracy:
The SW corner of Heatheridge Dr. about 1 hour before the worst of it. This house and its neighbors survived.
The SE corner of heatheridge. The house to the right of the mail truck and 4 or 5 to the left would later burn to the ground.
Flames bear down on Hidden Hill Drive--one ridge away from the Heatheridge homes. I'm standing with the mail carrier and others in the front yard of the house on the corner.
As the mail carrier and I go, the neighbors debate whether or not they should pack and leave. It is way past that point, but no official word had yet come and they seemed unconcerned. Embers dropped, causing the fire to jump to this ridge minutes after I left. Both houses were gone within an hour or two. I heard stories of people running to their cars with no shoes. One woman who lived one street over from this one me that her car's plastic bumper caught fire as they sped off.
Flames arrive at the summit of Hidden Hills Drive. Time for my family to leave.
We saw lots of chemical drops from these all day.
A red sun over the roof of the doomed Heatheridge house.
The smoke at our house when we left to take the kids elsewhere. There are 1 mile of homes between ours and those up on the ridges, but my wife and I came back in case embers caused flare-ups. There were'nt enough firefighters to do that, and a lot of our friends saved their own homes that way. We had no such drama here.
A TV crew films the wreckage of the Heatheridge house where I stood at earlier. The house to the left isn't there anymore, either. At this point there were no roadblocks, and suspicious cars trolled the neighborhoods. Some looting occurred and roadblocks went up later.
Chris Walton (and Dan Edmunds) @ 13,034 miles
dougtheeng says:
08:21 AM, 11/17/08
I'm glad to hear that both your homes survived.
Thanks for sharing the incredible pictures - we hear about it on the radio/tv all the time, but seeing these photos with your captions/stories really puts things in perspective.
mustang5507 says:
08:21 AM, 11/17/08
Glad to hear you guys are alright, but it's sad to hear about those who lost everything in the fires. Unfortunately, the air quality remains bad today. I'm surprised that the universities in the area are still open just due to the smoke.
joefrompa says:
08:26 AM, 11/17/08
Thank you so much for this story. Glad to weren't hurt and your family will be ok. The calm notes about how you were standing next to some houses, and thensome embers dropped and burned the houses down a few moments later...that really struck home for me. My wife didn't understand why I spent $70 on fire extinguishers when we moved into our house....but nothing can ruin a life quite like fire.
Maybe you guys should use an online service to upload your back-up/important files onto? Safer than keeping it on an external hard drive/DVD/etc.
Joe
actualsize says:
08:46 AM, 11/17/08
I have all my RECENT photos--anything that was taken with a digital camera--on a Western Digital external hard drive. And they are backed-up online, too. One USB cord and one power cord to disconnect and it was neatly in my car.
The problem is the old photos: glossies and black-and-whites. There are hundreds. Same goes for tax records and the like. An industrial-grade scanner is suddenly on my wife's X-mas list. But the last time I checked, you can't scan a wedding dress.
vvk says:
08:54 AM, 11/17/08
This is just terrible, terrible. I can't bear to think of all the families put in peril by this disaster.
sgude says:
09:00 AM, 11/17/08
Having been stationed at Camp Pendleton twice (89-91 and 98-02) I am keenly aware of the fire danger in SoCal. While I did not have to go through anything like this, I know that along with SoCal's weather and beauty comes an every-present danger of fire and earthquake.
Good luck to you all out there and take care of each other. My initial thought on this entry was "the haunches of that Bimmer sure look great," but after seeing the photos, my mind flashed back to how dark it got in Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein's oil fires. Darker than night, easily.
orangutan says:
10:06 AM, 11/17/08
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
eriches says:
10:10 AM, 11/17/08
Glad to hear you and the family are OK, Dan.
Would that be a Tool reference, orangutan? --ER
karjunkie says:
11:25 AM, 11/17/08
Thank God you're all OK. I thought I had it tough living in hurricane central here in Florida, but fire scares the pee out of me! I'll take wind over fire any day. Hope all those poor folks that lost their homes have better insurance than we do.Insurance has become prohibitively expensive here since hurricane Andrew.
cjasis says:
11:29 AM, 11/17/08
Glad that you and your family are alright.
I want to also take a moment to publicly thank the brave men and women of the fire dept. They are courageous, amazing, and brave. They must be exhausted and deserve our thanks.
I also want to take a moment to publicly admonish the idiots who committed arson and the low life scumbags who used this tragedy as an opportunity to loot. I believe in karma and feel that there is a special place in hell for you low life bastards who would use tragedy like this for your own gain. Shame on you.
hoops26 says:
12:46 PM, 11/17/08
Thanks for the photos. Living in the Midwest I've never seen anything like this. Stay safe.
Also, I noticed you chose the 09 F150 as your escape vehicle. Very good choice!
estreka says:
06:26 PM, 11/17/08
At first I was going to make a joke about how the smoke is actually the result of JRiz finding the keys to the R8 with a fresh set of tires, but that doesn't seem appropriate.
Those are stunning photos.
Have they begun to contain the fire? I hear the winds have died down but firefighters weren't having much luck.
We had rampant wildfires here in Montana last year but the population is so sparse that few died.
carfreak8394 says:
07:12 PM, 11/17/08
I agree with karjunkie. I would much rather go through a hurricane than deal with fire. Glad you are all okay! Stay safe.
bimmerjay says:
08:56 AM, 11/18/08
"I'll take wind over fire any day."
What about earth, wind AND fire?
70ss454_man says:
05:33 PM, 11/20/08
The pics you took remind me a lot of the movie "Lakeview Terrace"