Last night my husband and I were sharing cocktails on our front deck and I went in to feed the dog. When I came back out there was a noticeable difference in the colors outside. Last year when this happened there was a fire and we were seeing evidence of a fire again yesterday. Today I wanted to share photos that I took from our area. We are approximately 17 air miles north of this fire.
Here is a photo taken when we first saw smoke.
Seeing smoke
Here is another shot from a different angle.
Smoke rising
As we watch the smoke thickens.
The smoke thickens
Heading inside we turn on the news. KCRA 3 in Sacramento did a fine job of covering the fire for all of us. The next series of photos is from their news broadcast.
From the air
A house starts to burn. One thing to notice about this place is that they did not create defensible space around their home, which is one of the reasons this went up so fast. The trees are too close to this house.
A house starts to burn
A few minutes later, here is the same house.
The house a few minutes later
Here is a property with the fire approaching a fruit orchard. These folks prepared and have defensible space.
Defensible space
One more shot from KCRA 3. This is of one of the airplanes dropping retardant on the fire. The shot is from their helicopter.
Plane dropping retardant
Heading back outside and looking up, what you see are not clouds but smoke.
Smoke not clouds
Here is a shot as the sun sets…
As the sun sets
As I sat outside, I thought I should take a photo that shows ash fall. It was coming down in our area like a very light snow. The first shot is when I first sat down; the second is only a few minutes later.
My pants
My pants 3 minutes later
This fire went from 30 acres to 1300 in no time. It is only, as I write, 20% contained. So far this morning we do not see any smoke as the wind is blowing from east to west. We have not yet been told about the cause of this fire.
Where ever you are, we hope that you are safe. And, as Smokey says, “Only you can prevent forest fires!”
Thank you for dropping in and be well!
