Tuesday, January 15, 2008

OC Wildfires, October 2007

The October 2007 California wildfires were a series of fires that began burning across Southern California on October 20. At least 1,500 homes were destroyed and over 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) of land burned from Santa Barbara County to the U.S.–Mexico border. Nine people died as a direct result of the fire; 85 others were injured, including at least 61 fire fighters. (read more...)
October 21st 2007, 6:18pm, from the corner of our street. This is only 20 minutes after the fire started and it would have been only 1-2 miles from our home. Scary moment!

Bernie, Daniel and I jumped in with Bryce in his car to have a quick look at what was going on. We didn't get very far as the streets were being shut off and traffic directed away from the area, but you can get some idea of the situation from these snaps.



This is the moon before it got completely obliterated by smoke. The next few days we were shrouded in smoke - as was most of Southern California. I couldn't go out running for 2 weeks.

We ended up unharmed. We are blessed to be able to say that. Many, many peoples lives were affected and many will be rebuilding for a long time to come.

1 comment:

Bernie and Ruth Kinney said...

Man, these shots bring back some memories. Remember the layers of ash on our rentel car in the mornings? Or the 100 fire trucks screaming past the blocked intersection? Or the shcools closing and all outside activites being cancelled? These were crazy times!!!