Our house is at 32.860452N, 117.188871W in the University City area of San Diego, immediately west of I-805 and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
The picture of our house on Google Earth is out of date; it's
probably from before August 2003. It is definitely before spring 2005
when we began a major addition. The large pine tree in the south
corner of the lot is gone, replaced by a new living room. So the fire
hazard that it represents -- along with the pine needles -- is long
gone. But our house is wood, and to paraphrase the engineer in the
movie Titanic: Yes sir, it can
burn
.
As you can see from the published fire maps, there are many smaller fires and two major fires near here, the Witch fire to the northeast and the Harris fire to the southeast. The Witch fire has been declared the top priority in the state.
Except for the smoke, neither was an immediate threat to us. They would have had to go through some pretty densely populated areas to get here. From Sunday to Tuesday we seemed to be on the southern edge of the plume from the Witch fire. It was worst on Sunday, but we got it on and off depending on small wind shifts. (During Santa Ana conditions the normal on-shore cool moist flow is being replaced by fast, hot, dry winds from the east.) On Sunday, the smoke was so bad I could taste it, even indoors. Monday and later, it was much better.
My main concern was (and will be again) Rose Canyon north of us. The north end of Teasdale Avenue is a dead-end street that ends in an undeveloped area on the south edge of Rose Canyon. We're three houses from the end. The canyon has never burned in the 15 years I've been here, so the brush has built up. Nothing has happened there yet, but firebugs do exist and it would take only one. There are also high voltage transmission lines down there, plus Santa Fe railroad tracks. If a fire started, things would probably get very bad very quickly.
Kimberly's brother in law used to be the fire chief of Temecula CA. A while back I asked him what he thought of this area. He thought it was actually quite "defensible" because of the open space between the canyon edge and the last house and the ice plant on the tops of the slopes near those houses. The roofs are composition asphalt, not quite as good as clay tile but far far better than wood shake. My big question remains, though: if I called 911, would they come? These big Santa Ana fires bring in mutual aid from all over the western US, but they take time to get here. The fire fighters were, and are, stretched beyond their limits and totally exhausted. You can hear it in their voices on the scanner.
So far, and to our knowledge, no one we know has had their house burn, though some came very close. But it could still happen, so everyone is crossing their fingers very tightly.
I hoped that the burned-out areas from the Cedar fire exactly 4 years ago would provide at least a partial firebreak and make the fires easier to fight. This seems to have happened. The Cedar fire got close enough for me to see flames to the east on the south side of the landfill. Some of Miramar burned, and so did some businesses on the south side of SR 52.
We began packing on Sunday and got ready to go. Fortunately, our area was never evacuated. The southern edge of the evacuation zone was about 5 miles to the north, so we were actually in pretty good shape. But this was a huge, fast-moving fire so we still treated it very seriously. Our rule was simple: if it can be replaced with money, it stays. Otherwise we try to take it with us. For us, that of course means us, plus Sarah (dog) and Gomez and Morticia (cats). For me, that means my diplomas and some wall plaques plus a ridiculous number of hard drives that I've accumulated over the years. My professional life is on those drives. I have a lot of technical textbooks that are out of print, but there's nothing I can do about them.
For Kimberly, it means her photo albums and momentos. I've resolved that when this is all over, I'll build a couple of RAID servers with 1 terabyte drives, copy all those old drives to them, and trash them.
Four years ago, during the Cedar fire (which actually was more of a threat to us), I resolved that when it was over I'd scan all my photos. It took a few months of evening work, but I did. I scattered CD copies around to my family, so I have one less thing to worry about. When you see people evacuating ahead of a natural disaster, nearly all of what they carry are personal photos, so I highly recommend scanning your entire collection ahead of time. At the very least, scan the really important ones. Do it from the negatives or slides if you can, not from the prints. Of course, digital photos are already trivial to copy, so just do it! Make multiple CDs or DVDs and scatter them to your family and friends.
We had planned to go to Pittsburgh for the AMSAT meeting this weekend, but we cancelled. Even though things began to look better on Wednesday, and were forecast to be (and are) quite good on the weekend, we knew conditions could change again with an adverse change in the weather. And I knew I would be preoccupied with what was happening back home so I wouldn't be able to enjoy the conference.
Things are winding down so I probably won't update this page again.
Some philosophical musings on fire, written as therapy. I was never as scared and for so long as I was this past week, and I think this also goes for millions of people around here. It's something we won't easily forget.
Yesterday (Thursday) President Bush made a brief visit to San Diego and posed for photo ops with a few of the burned-out (yet strangely smiling) residents of Rancho Bernardo, where the loss of property was greatest. He delivered his usual content-free, ineloquent and patronizing speeches. As per my personal rule I tried to watch as little of him as I could.
A day earlier, back in Washington, Dana Perino, Bush's press secretary, had said the following:
"When we are a nation at war there are priorities that you have to make sure that the National Guard units that are serving, that live in California but are serving right now in Iraq you want to make sure that they have the equipment that they need in order to protect themselves and so you have to weigh those priorities..."Unbelievable. Simply un-fucking unbelievable.
Air Force One came into Miramar MCAS just to the east of us, and it took off around 4:30pm. It flew almost directly over our house at low altitude. The usual fighter (F/A-18) traffic turns right immediately after takeoff to avoid these residential areas, but transports cannot turn as sharply, and very large and heavy planes like 747s (e.g, Air Force 1) cannot turn at all. They also climb slowly. It rattled the windows and shook the house. I emerged without my glasses on, but I could see the blue-and-white color pattern. I'd seen it take off from Miramar once before, when Clinton was in office.
Phil & Kimberly 19:00 Friday October 26, 2007, PDT