Terrible fires in wine country

I reported in "Friends & Fun." Tubbs fire was within half a mile of me on Monday morning, but it stopped at Centennial Blvd and Chanate Road, for those who know the territory. I was all packed and ready, but the evacuation call never came, thanks be!
I didn't have power frm sometime before dawn Monday morning till about 5 PM tonight, but the weather wasn't hot and my wine stash didn't get boiled away.
Tomorrow I do laundry, grocery shopping, and general rehab from camping out in the cold, dark house for several days..

Unreal... Today, the Fire Department I retired from in Utah was dispatched to go put out California.

[Jenise]

Wow; I know British Columbia's sending firefighters and didn't I read that Australia had too? Amazing what it's going to take to deal with this.

I posted a few days ago in Friends & Fun that I'm fine. I didn't have to evacuate, though the Tubbs fire came within half a mile of me on Monday morning, and I had no power or internet until Thursday evening.
My cousins in the Rincon Valley neighborhood (east Santa Rosa) had to evacuate, but it doesn't look like their house got hit.

[Jenise]

The stories coming out of Santa Rosa are so SAD. Yesterday I read about a family who had rented a hilltop house for a family vacation to celebrate the birthdays of the 75 year old parents. The vacationers consisted of the parents and two of their adult kids + families. Late that night after others had gone to bed, their son in law was outside staring at the wind when a fireball landed at his feet. In "30 seconds, at most 40 seconds" they were "engulfed". He ran inside, got everyone in their cars, and headed downhill through the fire. When they got to the bottom of the hill, they realized the last car, containing the parents, wasn't with them. One tried to go back but couldn't. Turns out the parents had a burning tree fall in their path, and unable to get around it, the car caught fire so they fled on foot back to the rented home and jumped in the pool where they spent the night, swimming back and forth trying to escape the heat, coming up for air only when they had to. Toward morning, the mother died of smoke inhalation.

How do you come to terms with something like that? The list of if-only's on the part of nearly everyone involved has got to be long. "If I hadn't gone back for my purse", "If I hadn't taken the time to find my shoes", all those little things that cost a precious second or two.

Oh gawd. I read that tragic story.

The containment is way up this morning, though you could tell just by looking at the air for the last couple days. Even on Thursday you could see heavy plumes of smoke coming from the north bay. The sun glowed blood red as it set. This morning I went for a run since the air quality was decent, the first time I've exercised outside since they started. John, glad you are safe. Hope you are enjoying blue(ish) skies as well.

I found to my great surprise that I had only two wines from Sonoma in the cellar. Will have to remedy that once things calm down.

Still a lot of smoke in the air. Not as much ash as yesterday. Sunshine overhead, smoke plumes to the southeast where the Nuns fire is. No new evacuations for the last couple of days, though.

The containment is way up this morning, though you could tell just by looking at the air for the last couple days. Even on Thursday you could see heavy plumes of smoke coming from the north bay. The sun glowed blood red as it set. This morning I went for a run since the air quality was decent, the first time I've exercised outside since they started. John, glad you are safe. Hope you are enjoying blue(ish) skies as well.

I found to my great surprise that I had only two wines from Sonoma in the cellar. Will have to remedy that once things calm down.

That's why I was in Lodi. Clean as a whistle air.

Glad to hear things are clearing out there.

[Robin Garr]

Good news, Lou posted this on Facebook today:

We're fine. The fire came close, we were evacuated but returned yesterday. I wish I could say that for too many friends.

The evacuation was lifted from my cousin's neighborhood in Rincon Valley this afternoon. Their house is fine; all they'll have to do is clean out the refrigerator and freezer.

Thanks to everyone who inquired about our safety.. We spent the last week in a motel and feel lucky considering homes burnt just a few blocks away. 40 mile an hour winds Sunday night sent burning embers far but we live in a section next to Silverado CC that all the roofs are made of heavy red tile. It has been a difficult week but considering that many of our friends lost their homes we feel very fortunate. Funny when I was younger this kind of a situation was much easier to handle.

[Jenise]

But Lou, when you/we/all of us were younger, though, did we have these kinds of situations? I know time faces things, but the severity of climate-related disasters seems more intense than anything I can recall. Bob and I were watching a bit of news last night and the tragedy of Las Vegas came up. We were kind of going, "Oh yeah, that's right, something bad happened in Las Vegas" because the fires quickly turned that into yesterday's news.

Appreciate what you're saying about those heavy tiles. However, I did note in film footage of Santa Rosa many ex-homes with tile roofs--even the usual precautions were ineffective with what they faced there.

Must be unbelievably sad to come home to what you did. Happy to be spared, but surrounded by huge loss. Not easy. Hugs to you and Bettylu, and my sincerest condolences to your neighborhood.

[David M. Bueker]

Santa Rosa was a wall of fire that swept through parts of town, not embers.