That weekend there were several fires throughout Southern California. The fires caused the largest evacuation in California history. Over one MILLION people were evacuated. 1,000,000! Some fires were started by accident, but sadly enough some were started on purpose. The fire that directly effected us was the Witch Fire. It burned 197,990 acres and destroyed 1,040 homes, 414 outbuildings, and 239 vehicles. It damaged 70 homes and 25 outbuildings. It caused 2 deaths and 39 injuries to firefighters and 2 to civilians. This is the damage from just the Witch fire. Here is a Wikipedia page that has some very through info on all the Southern California fires: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2007_California_wildfires
It all started on Sunday the 21st of October. The day had started out like any other. We slept in, the kids had breakfast. They ran around the house. The played in the backyard. Then at almost exactly at 2pm smoke rolled in and the sky turned orange. We were surrounded by smoke. The kids came inside and we shut all the windows. It was hot that weekend, in the 80s and it was windy, our infamous Santa Ana winds. We found out later that the fire was in Ramona, located about 30 miles northeast of here.
By that evening the wind was howling and reached speeds of 30-40 mph. I don't remember the winds being this strong and steady since I was a girl. The house was whistling with the winds and woke Michaela. She was scared and ended up sleeping in her room. By the time I went to bed that night just before 1 am, the fire had caused the evacuation of Ramona and there was threat of fire in the northern part of Poway. I went to bed knowing that school was canceled due to the poor air quality. Never in a million years would I have thought to prepare to evacuate. Those kind of thing never happen to us personally. It's only something you see on TV.
Although Keith had to go to work on Monday morning, he kept turning the alarm off. We finally got out of bed because my Dad called us at 7am. I was a bit annoyed because I *already* knew that school was canceled. So, I answered and boy did I get the shock of my life. "We are evacuating. Turn on the TV!" he says. The last time he called me saying to turn on the TV, the Twin Towers were on fire.
I whacked Keith and told him we had to evacuate. My parents live within walking distance of us, so if they were leaving, I guess we should too. We turned on the TV and I was shocked to see that the fire had reached the community just 2-3 miles away as the crow flies. I watched in disbelief as houses in Rancho Bernardo were burning down.
I quickly realized that we had to go. The news was saying that our area was on mandatory evacuation. Our community has almost 60,000 people in it and only five ways out. I remembered that our Expedition had no gas in it and I told Keith to leave to get gas while I packed us up. Keith wasn't gone long. He came back after seeing the lines at the gas station were a mile long. We decided to head to Mom and Dad's to try to syphon gas from Dad's Expedition to ours. We decided to leave Keith's truck behind, mainly because he didn't have gas either, but also because I didn't want to be separated form Keith.
We packed each kid a backpack. They had a weeks worth of clothes. They also brought three of their most favorite toys. We brought their blankets and pillows too. Keith and I each had a backpack. We grabbed the computers and the external drives with all our pictures on them. I grabbed our important documents. That was it. We didn't grab anything else. By the time we left, the roads were booked solid. Mom and Dad's were in the opposite direction, so we had no trouble getting there.
Mom and Dad were packing up all three of their cars and had Tasha in the cat carrier and the four dogs on leases. We tried to syphon the gas, but just could not get it to work. So, we left without them and tried to get gas. We didn't get far. Not more than 10 minutes on the road and our low fuel warning light was on. We bought a gallon of gas from a landscaper that was in the lane next to us. He had a little bit in his tank for his lawnmower.
Mom and Dad and my sister managed to get to another road and phoned us that it was free and clear there. The gas stations were open and had no lines. The Interstate was closed earlier and not many people headed that direction. Good thing my parents did. That's what saved us having to push our car. Imagine the move "Deep Impact" when the asteroid is going to hit and there is a mass exodus to leave. Streets packed, not moving. Cars loaded to the brim with possessions. That's what is looked like. It was not a good feeling.
Anyway, we did manage to get gas and although my parents headed to Qualcomm stadium with the rest of San Diego, we headed north to Oceanside to stay with Keith's boss. We never made it there. It seems everyone was headed north. We turned around and started to head south. On our way, my parents called and said they decided to leave Qualcomm and head to the beach. The air quality was much nicer there and that area was largely unaffected by the fires. We ended up meeting them there and spent the day in Mission Beach.
We had blue skies most of the day and the smoke stayed away from where we were. Throughout the day, RVs and other car loads of people showed up. After chatting with some of them we found that a lot of them were from our area. Here's a picture of us at the beach. It is a candid shot.
That evening we traveled further south and stayed at my Uncle's house. As you can imagine, we were glued to the TV with news. One of the biggest worries of this fire was that it would come over the mountain, the one that my parent's house is on, and come right down on our community. That's about 10,000+ homes right in the fire's way. There were numerous websites up and the county had an official site that gave news on the latest or evacuations and where the fires were.
We ended up staying at my Uncle's until Wednesday. We got back home Wednesday evening. School was canceled the rest of the week due to the cleanup of the schools and the poor air quality. Keith workplace was also shut down because of the fires. Most of Northern San Diego County was shut down for the week.
Although the fires are all contained, it continues to effect a lot of people. Please pray for all those who lost their homes, their livelihoods and their lives.
**I am trying to upload pictures to an album, but it isn't quite working! I'll post the link when I can get it to work!**
