On my way home from work last week, I noticed this fire up in the foothills east of town. I pulled off the road and took a picture with the cell phone. Up in that country, there are many homes nestled among the hills and oak trees, which is a beautiful way to live, but they are quite vulnerable to this kind of fire.
Sure enough, the fire was big enough to get a name, the Sand Fire, and caused a significant number of folk to have to abandon their homes and flee.
"A wildfire forced the evacuation of more than 500 homes and about 1,200 residents in a rural area east of the California state capital Sacramento on Saturday, a day after the blaze broke out, fire officials said."
"The wind-swept fire burned more than 3,000 acres, destroying five residences and two outbuildings and causing one minor injury."
This guy as least has most of the house away from trees, but still, that's a lot of grass right up to the house. Many homes in this area are deep in the oaks and bull pines, which makes their survival in a fire such as this uncertain.
Here is the Cal Fire page on the Sand Fire. Looks like ten homes burnt for now.
Meanwhile, up in Yosemite, yet another foothill fire is filling the park with smoke. Talk about sauce for global warming!
The wife and I drove up to a friends house for dinner last night. They live just a few miles north of the Sand Fire, in the same dry, oak wooded terrain, on top of a ridge, at the end of a two mile, one lane dead end road. Looking south at that smoke gives one an eerie feeling.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is it's a two mile, one lane road. Better not let that fire trap them. Sometimes it's better to live in the flatland.
Deletethe picture showing the home with the blackened hills behind it is sobering - glad it's not me
ReplyDelete