School has started. This is where I get 10 months of daytime solitude. You know… When Poe gets a job that is.
School started two days late due to the Station Fire. The air quality around our little town is much better today – although this morning the smoke smell was still rich. But the sky is blue. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen blue.
So far the fire is 150,000+ acres. The perimeter is 50 miles. About the size of Chicago. As of 9am this morning we were at 42% containment. They expect containment by 9/15. It is the largest Los Angeles County or Angeles National Forest fire ever in their histories. It is suspected arson. Homicide charges are also being investigated, due to the two firefighters, Captain Ted Hall and Fire
Fighter Specialist Arnie Quinones, who lost their lives. While neither worked here anymore – both of them used to work in our town. So very sad. Despite the good news of higher humidity and the containment percentages, this comes from my town’s website (now that it’s left our personal area we’re updated twice a day instead of hourly:)
Overall, growth potential for the Station Fire continues to be extreme. The fire is progressing south toward Pasadena; west toward the Yerba Buena Ridge; north toward the 14 Freeway and Santa Clara Ridge; east toward Mt. Wilson and into the San Gabriel Wilderness. The fire is in extremely steep and inaccessible terrain, burning in 40+ year old 15-20 foot high decadent vegetation. Fire is active during the day and night operational periods, and is currently directly threatening Mount Wilson, which is a major communications facility servicing all of Southern California.
So, if you stop hearing about it – or they say it’s all good – it’s not. In addition, today begins a review process while the experts come in and figure out what our mudslide and flooding issues are going to be. They’ll also be letting the individual homeowners know as well in an advisory capacity and assisting our town in preventative measures. The brush in our area hadn’t burned in 40-60 years. We’re a foothill community. When the rains come, regardless of the precautions, we’re all going to hold our breaths.
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