Day Two of Being Evacuated

This is how close the fire came to us.  This house is at the end of the street.  Ground flames were very close to reaching the house.  Fortunately it was not crown fire.

This is the garage, look up hill on the right where the ground is dark.  That's where Department of Natural Resources fire guys put it out.  For those of you not familiar with fighting fires, like I was not until recently, there's a fire boss.  He and a spotter fly a race track over the fire looking for outbreaks.  They spotted the fire headed for the house, and they got there in time.  If the wind had shifted just a little, it could have wiped us all out.  The current count is 600 structures lost, grateful we are not to be in that count.

This is behind the same house.  The stuff that looks like ground fog is fire.  There are still hot spots in the woods.  The hoses are still there and are charged with water.  They'll be dousing those again until they go out.

Hoses on the hill side.

Now I will engage in some petty whining.  I hate this!  This is worse than when the RV was in for repairs.  Air quality is really terrible (AQI is 252), so we can't go do anything out doors or walk around.  During the day we're basically in the car with the air conditioning on recirculate to keep the smoke out of the car.  Bored, we are.  The power is still out, it's down to 10,000 8,478 6,682 people without service.  We're seriously thinking about buying a generator to run the refrigerator and one outlet.  That would give us food and internet.  We have head lights and little lamps and we're not afraid to use them.  And there is the food thing, today was MacDonald's egg McMuffins for breakfast, and then a cheeseburger at Wendy's for lunch.   At this point, I would kill for a salad.  I can feel my arteries hardening off.

Tonight and tomorrow night we're in an extended stay hotel, it has a full size refrigerator, silverware, dishes, and etc.  We're still eating microwaveable dinners, but at least there will be vegetables.  The downsides are the internet is glacial, we're hard up against the freeway, and the people next door have about 6 little kids.  However, we're not in a shelter, we have a car, and I should just stop complaining. Our house is undamaged, which is more than many people can say. 

Police and National Guard still have our area cordoned off.  There is one way in to the neighborhood that they do not seem to know about, so we were able to get in to the house today.  There were several people in their houses.  There were several generators going.  No one is supposed to be there.  I guess we'll go back tomorrow and hopefully we can some more clothing.  When I packed (with my hair on fire) I did not think this would go on this long, but I was wrong.

So, as my brother used to say, here we are and here we be. 

Update 6/2:  We have two new fires as of this writing.  Good thing there is no climate change.