Well, we're into about the 5th week of fires and smoke. Actually about 2 weeks of heavy smoke. We thought the fires were almost under control, but Monday night the winds picked up and the fires started heading towards Paradise. The entire East side of town is on immediate evacuation (altho many people have stayed) and most of the rest of town pretty much east of where I live is on precautionary evacuation notice. Things could change at any moment.
They set a back fire Monday night when the fire shifted this way, but that backfired on them! It turned into a huge inferno. Last count 50 homes in Concow burned to the ground and the whole east ridge of Paradise and Magalia is in danger of going up in flames. The ashes began showing up Monday morning. It was really creepy.
I didn't even know the fires had started back up until my sister-in-law called from San Diego before I left for work yesterday, telling me we were on the CNN news with people being evacuated. I'm, like.... WHAT??? Went outside and could not believe the ashes flying around. It was worse at work. Smokier and unbreathable! We've been selling thousands of filter masks at the store. The friggin' swamp coolers were running, bringing in smoke inside the store... People were buying sprinklers, hoses, chainsaws, brush clearing tools... It was nuts. We closed the store at 4:00 yesterday and today due to the smoke and over-100° temps. It's been really scarey!!!
This afternoon the smoke had lifted quite a bit and the ashes are gross all over everything. I went out to do some hand watering and saw a big yellow Huey flying over with a water bucket, heading to one of the nearby waterways. Thank heavens! They hadn't been able to dump any water or retardent on this latest fire for almost 2 weeks because of the lousy visibility from all the smoke. Hopefully they'll get this dang fire out before it does make it to Paradise.
We have firefighters from all over the state and Nevada too. I heard on the radio today that this "Campfire" fire as they have called it, is the state's #1 priority. Arnold Schwarzenegger apparenty had visited the west side of Paradise on Monday before the fire flared back up. He was looking at the area where a lot of houses burned down in the "Humboldt" fire almost 5 weeks ago. I guess after seeing that and seeing how vulnerable we are, he made sure we get all the help we need.
Sorry about going on so.. but this is a really frightening time for us here. For decades people here have been warning about the BIG one that could come and burn this town totally down. We have so many pine trees and huge overgrown brush areas. The tree huggers don't want trees cut down... but I think this is a huge wake-up call. We also have a major need for more exit roads in the upper ridge areas of Paradise Pines and Magalia.
Anyway, here's some pics of the roses and stuff blooming their best in this smoke and high temps.
This doesn't really look all that smokey, but it was three times as thick at my work. Was like beige fog.
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This is a huge oriental lily along the outer fence area.
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and another oriental lily in the red/burgundy/white bed
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ADOLPH HORSTMANN - look at that one big ash chunk!
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CINDERELLA FREELANDER
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DELIGHT
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JANET
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JULIE NEWMAR
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MISS BEHAVIN' - looking fried and covered with spiderwebs and ashes!
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And just for the heck of it, I had to get a pic of my husband's toy... covered in ash. He usually has it all waxed & buffed and clean. Looks icky. It actually looks worse in person.
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peachiekean
niecey
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