Two years ago today

[Redmt]

Two years ago today the SCU fire hit us. We watched it coming and made our final preparations for it. We watched and planned, hoping it would run around us. It didn't. It hit us on 3 sides within 5 minutes. I've fought a lot of fire in our area but this one was the worst times 10. I'm sitting here drinking my coffee, Cooper is sound asleep next to me on the couch ripping dog farts. I'm really starting to realize what PTSD is all about. Here's an article printed not long after the fire.

Bay Area Gets Devastating Welcome to Era of Megafires | San Jose Inside

California has never seen anything like the lightning fires that struck amid a pandemic, rolling blackouts and a record heatwave.

www.sanjoseinside.com

 

[jryoung]

Sitting in between SCU and CZU two summers ago was brutal. The little bit of lightning we had the other day was a little unnerving.

 

[Nameless Range]

That is an interesting article. I think it would be interesting to study the preparations and outcomes of those who remain at home and fight a fire themselves - often successful, but sometime catastrophically not.

California just seems to be in a perpetual state of tinder.

 

[Redmt]

My neighbor to the east evacuated. He lost everything. I actually used the characteristics of his home going up as the trigger to start my backfires. The smoke even at 2am was visible enough to see the color change.

 

[Redmt]

Another of my neighbors, 2 miles away, was over today and I mentioned the 2 year "anniversary" being today. He said "no tomorrow". The fire was circling and spotting all over the place and it had missed his place the first time when it hit us. It had jumped back across the road and burned back to the east and over the top of him the next day. He got burned over during our fire before this one and all the fuel around his place was diminished enough that it didn't pose too much of a threat. His closer neighbor 1/2 mile way got trapped and was burned severely. He was in induced coma for 3 months and in the hospital for 8 months total. The neighbor, I won't use his name had 3rd degree over 75% of his body and lived, we didn't expect him to. Today he's in great spirits and back at his 2 part time jobs he's had for years. He will laugh and say that it didn't burn his face or his balls so he's just fine.

 

[Redmt]

We are in the seeable end of cleanup. Most of the stuff will now fit in a bucket. I'm not sure what this used to be except it was aluminum that appears to have dripped into the pile.