Scared, praying, & hopeful...

[Yooper]

Been following this thread, Bill, and hoping it would have a happy ending! Thank God it did! As bearbait said, get rested up!

 

[RCW]

Great news!!


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[Lil Foot]

Thanks folks, I'll be heading for my place in about an hour, that should put me there just about at my scheduled re-entry time. We will clean out the fridge, have a look around, and see if we can help someone who was not as lucky as we were.

 

[Lil Foot]

Well, everything checked out fine, except for my outside street light timer- for some reason it is fried. And some spoiled food.
They have barricades up allowing only residents in the areas where homes burned, so we were not able to lend hand to anyone yet.
Somehow my trees are prettier, the sky seems bluer, & the deer and birds are more fun to watch.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Very thankful it turned out so well for you and yours!

 

[bearbait]

Great news, sometimes good things happen to good people.

 

[D2Cat]

When something catastrophic (and we get through it) happens it makes us see lots of things differently. It hurts to see the damage folks had. Thankfully you escaped the damage, and you're there willing to help others. That's a pretty good outcome Bill.

I believe you get what you sow, more than you sow, latter than you sow. Perhaps all the effort you put into helping your family has paid big dividends!

 

[David Page]

Thankful for how it came out for you. Sounds like you appreciate things a little differently now. I know I'm not always as thankful for whats important as I should be. Life and our way of life is really quite fragile.

 

[Daren Todd]

Lilfoot, Glad your place and the bota are safe.

As far as the barricades go, that's pretty normal after an event like that. Usually lasts for 3 or 4 days, then it's back to business as usual.

Area I'm in has been under martial law twice now. Both times do to a tornado going through the area. It brings out the looky lou's and the crooks. When the first tornado came through, it wiped out the infrastructure. Took them a week to get power on.

National guard had the area locked up tight. I had to run down a mile from the house to one of the barricades, so they would let my in-laws into the area. Second day I was arguing with them over the phone to let an auto glass guy through so he could put a new windshield in my truck. You couldn't see out the drivers side.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Glad to hear most of the neighborhood is intact.

Some of the footage in the burn areas showed the fire had left quite a few trees still alive in areas. I hope so as those will maintain the character of the area as the fire damage slowly disappears.

What concerns me is the wind direction change. This morning in Cave Creek the wind was variable, out of the northeast and northwest. The smell of smoke was everywhere. The snow helped damp the Tinder fire down but hot stumps are everywhere and the risk of a flare-up is still there. Hope they get a handle on any of the hot spots. God bless the firefighters who do this work every year.

I bet the attention to brush control and burn barriers picks up after an event like this.

A friend who is a firefighter said they will work doubly hard to save a structure where the owner has cleared out combustible materials from a 30-40' zone around his structure. It gives the firefighters a chance. Some homes that have brush and trees right next to the structure are impossible to save, even if a dedicated crew were to stay with them.

With a fast moving fire, they often cannot afford the crews or the risks associated with stationing people on a structure. In stead, they hose the area down just before the fire arrives and nature takes over.

 

[skeets]

Speaking of that Ray,, years ago in the GWN a lake we fished had some rather large homes along the lake, along the ridges and down the sides of the roofs they had water sprays. And some place hidden very well was a large volume pump sucking or would suck water from the lake to spray the house and surrounding yards and brush during fire season. That was something I had never seen before, but I guess if you are trying to protect a multi million dollar home you can afford to do that kind of stuff,,, Us poor folk are pretty much screwed,, Im happy it turned out well for you

 

[CaveCreekRay]

My firefighter buddy has been grabbing surplus or inoperative "spray bags" that he said work awesomely in stopping bush fires. They are simple heavy-duty rubberized bags that hold maybe three gallons when full. They feed a brass wand that sprays when you pump the handle. Usually, the seals go and they are simple to swap out. His volunteer department gets a pallet load from the Feds every year so they pitch the older ones and he grabs them. He said this little bit of water is all you need to put out a small bush on fire. For those with 2-3 gallon bug sprayers, same idea. File that away in case the need arises.

My friend told me about a fire up north where everyone evacuated except for an 82 year old fella who wanted to stay. His was the only house that survived. He used similar portable tools and what his hose put out. The neighbors asked why he didn't save their homes too. His answer was, "Hey! I'm 82! I was busy saving my own home!"

 

[RCW]

Wonderful that you’ve now seen your place. Must be a great relief!!


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[Lil Foot]

Hopefully my last report.

Current Size: 16,309 acres.

Cause: Abandoned Illegal Campfire.

Containment: 79%.

Structures Lost: 33 primary residences, 54 minor structures.

I took some pics of burned home in our subdivision. It was heartbreaking.

Most need no explanation, but the second pic is a blow up of a part of the first pic. It shows an upright safe, with an arrow pointing to a hole where the lock tumbler knob used to be, before it melted off.

 

[Lil Foot]

more pics:

 

[Lil Foot]

The final four:

 

[Lil Foot]

The re-entry was handled amazingly well. Law enforcement was everywhere, keeping the riffraff & scammers out. There were dumpsters provided for spoiled food, debris, burned appliances, etc. The Southern Baptists cooked meals 3 times a day for 5 days. Disaster relief from various agencies included food, water, drinks, toiletries, work gloves, masks, shovels, rakes, sifters, blankets, dog & cat food, & more. There was grief counseling, assistance with building permits, a nurse, representatives from several insurance companies, free well water testing, the registrar of contractors, county health, three different churches, Red Cross, and maybe a dozen more agencies there to assist people. The fire fighters who weren't on duty were there at the entrance welcoming everyone back. On the second day, relief workers walked door-to-door to every house offering more services and asking if you had specific needs they could help with. Simply amazing.
Because the power was off for 4+ days,the county health department recommended well water testing.
I only took advantage of the well water testing, and received a glowing water purity report this morning.

The one thing I did see that I was not happy about, was that all those services were intended for those who lost their homes or outbuildings, or lost food and had no way to get more quickly.
However, I saw several dozen people, all with untouched, no where near the fire, half million dollar & up homes, stuffing their faces, and grabbing all the supplies they could carry, each time they came for a mooched meal. Just disgusting. Many of the folks who lost their homes were older folks who were too proud or embarrassed to ask for help- that doesn't come easy for many of their generation, and then we have people who don't need or deserve help, grabbing all they can.
Sad commentary on our society.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Glad to hear things are recovering. The houses can be rebuilt but I was glad to see much tall timber still standing and green. Nobody wants to lose homes but thankfully, no lives were lost. Maybe this burn will help prevent the next one by clearing out the underbrush. There was another fire burning somewhere in the state a month ago and it was burning so low and slow that it wasn't threatening any trees. It looked as though they were letting it go while managing the edges. Back then the winds were low. For the Timber fire, they were whipping.

I was at a neighbors house Sunday and met a person who used to live in Santa Rosa, CA. As you know, much of the town burned last summer with 1500 homes lost. The state of CA has refused to allow any reconstruction to start because the ground is "contaminated with ash." Duh! Many of the people are homeless up there awaiting approval but it still looks many months away. And, with much of the vegetation gone, the owners needed to get back in and get plants and trees established to stabilize the hillsides before the rains came. They were never allowed to. Those neighborhoods are far worse now than right after the fire.

At least those in your neighborhood won't have to deal with that insanity.

 

[Lil Foot]

Something else I did not expect- A neighbor with a Bobcat and I both checked with the relief managers about assisting the folks with burned homes; we thought we might be of some help with moving out burned AC units, heat pumps, fridges, etc..

We were told thanks, but no thanks. It seems that the insurance reps were advising people who lost their homes not to use any volunteers and to wait for the licensed, bonded, insured pros.

Liability issues, both for the homeowner & the volunteer. Another side effect of our lawyer driven, lawsuit happy society.

In a way, I have to admit some guilty relief with that; I was really worried about nails in my (4) brand new tires. There have got to be 10s of thousands of nails in those ash plies.

 

[Daren Todd]

Glad to hear things are recovering. The houses can be rebuilt but I was glad to see much tall timber still standing and green. Nobody wants to lose homes but thankfully, no lives were lost. Maybe this burn will help prevent the next one by clearing out the underbrush. There was another fire burning somewhere in the state a month ago and it was burning so low and slow that it wasn't threatening any trees. It looked as though they were letting it go while managing the edges. Back then the winds were low. For the Timber fire, they were whipping.

I was at a neighbors house Sunday and met a person who used to live in Santa Rosa, CA. As you know, much of the town burned last summer with 1500 homes lost. The state of CA has refused to allow any reconstruction to start because the ground is "contaminated with ash." Duh! Many of the people are homeless up there awaiting approval but it still looks many months away. And, with much of the vegetation gone, the owners needed to get back in and get plants and trees established to stabilize the hillsides before the rains came. They were never allowed to. Those neighborhoods are far worse now than right after the fire.

At least those in your neighborhood won't have to deal with that insanity.

The term educated idiot comes to mind in California's situation. You should have seen the fires during tornado cleanup in this area. Mind you this happened twice in the same area 3 years apart almost to the day.

EPA was touring the area checking it out. The inspector happened to make this comment to my neighbor who was working for the city road department at the time and giving the EPA guy a tour of the effected area. "Give a redneck a match and some diesel fuel and they can have the area cleaned up pretty quick!!!". Granted some of the stuff shouldn`t have been burned They instituted a burn ban for about a week, Until the EPA inspector left. Then the burn ban was lifted and cleanup resumed