I’m home! My house is still standing. There’s an active fire still burning on the hill behind me. But firemen said they have a fire break in place and did back burns to keep the fire spreading to the houses here.
The smoke is heavy. Local govt says the air quality is very bad, so to limit time outside and wear N95 rated face mask when outdoors. Schools are still closed to keep children from bad air exposure. A couple of wineries in the area have reopened their tasting rooms. More so because everyone needs some sense of normalcy.
They had set up a helicopter staging area in the vineyard behind my house. That put them very close to the fire. So they were able to fill up the helicopters with fire retardant and spread it on the fire break areas within a couple of minutes.
First Responders are nothing short of brave and amazing! They literally saved thousands of lives and homes here!
My power is on. But verything in my fridge is spoiled since there was no power here for several days. The water is off right now. I’m not sure why, but it is. So I will be eating out for a day or two. But it’s good to be home.
When the fires stared, 75% of the crops had been harvested. I walked into the vineyard. A lot of the fruit is still on the vine. What was not harvested is totally destroyed. Covered in ash and shriveled.
So much wildlife is displaced. We have a a lot of deer, rabbit, fox, coyote, skunk, and raccoon around here. The deer, coyote, and fox tend to stay on the back side of the property closer to the mountain. And they are usually only out in the early morning hours and at dusk. But they are up near the road at mid-day. Fox aren’t used to being near people and roads. A couple have been hit trying to cross the highway. It’s really sad.
