California Station Fire

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Danoff

Danoff

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I'm a bit surprised to not see a thread on this already as this fire approaches 100,000 acres around Los Angeles, has claimed the lives of a few firefighters, and has burned homes. I haven't had much time to poke around though, so hopefully I didn't miss it.

I was evacuated from my house this weekend as a result of the fire. As best I can tell, the house is still there. But the fire was coming down our hill toward our neighborhood. I have some photos, which I'll upload in a bit, that show the fire as viewed from my back yard, front yard, and even from through the window inside the house.

When I drove out of my driveway on Saturday I left tire tracks in the ash that had been accumulating. You could see ash drifts along the sides of the roads.

All in all, I'm not terribly concerned about the house. I think it's pretty safe where it is. But the fire is taking so long to burn our hill that I'm afraid it's going to be a week before we can go back home.
 
Been there, done that and got the t-shirt.

We had a huge fire in our area 5-6 years ago that wiped out a lot of our neighbors. We had to evacuate during the night, but we knew it was headed our way.

You know, I've noticed that the places here in SoCal that never had fires within the past 6-7 years all seem to have fires now. It's like fires are being intentionally set systematically in select patches of land that would prevent one huge, major fire from occurring.

Is it firefighters creating job security? BLM setting fires trying to destroy destructive insects? I cannot believe that all these fires are set my arsonists or by accidental causes all within a short span of time.
 
It's not the house that I'd be concerned with. It's some of the things in the house. Hopefully you took out what matters the most.

Good luck, Dan. 👍

If you're looking for a road trip for a few days, it's clear skies and a lovely 71° in NoDak! :dopey:
 
TB
It's not the house that I'd be concerned with. It's some of the things in the house. Hopefully you took out what matters the most.

Good luck, Dan. 👍

If you're looking for a road trip for a few days, it's clear skies and a lovely 71° in NoDak! :dopey:
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+miles of nothing but fields, lots and lots of fields.:p
 
Justin
+miles of nothing but fields, lots and lots of fields.:p
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Hunting season starts tomorrow in those fields. The trip just might be worth it! 👍

On that topic, our big day of hunting has be canceled due to the fire. Great, the first opening day I've missed since my dad died and mom refused to take me.
 
Solid Lifters
On that topic, our big day of hunting has be canceled due to the fire. Great, the first opening day I've missed since my dad died and mom refused to take me.
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If you're looking for a road trip for a few days, it's clear skies and a lovely 73° in NoDak! :dopey:

:p
 
Hey, good luck, Dan, and keep us posted as you can.
 
Just went back to check on the house and see how the fire is progressing. It's about 2000 ft from our neighborhood now, so this evening fire crews will be fighting to keep it out of our yard. I'll probably know whether my house will survive by tomorrow. I have no idea, however, how long I'll be evacuated. The wilderness comes to within 6 houses of us at its closest point - and there is absolutely nothing I can see that will stop the fire from burning to that point. Hopefully the fire crews can do what they've been doing for miles up and down the fireline and stop it from entering the neighborhood.
 
Good luck - Some of my people I know that live in LA have been posting things about it, and its truly a strange set of circumstances. Just as a reference, how far away from downtown Los Angeles is this? They keep saying on the news here that its close to the city limits, but that doesn't mean much to someone living out here.
 
Best of luck to you, and I hope that the fire crews can save your neighbourhood... I can't imagine what it must feel like to not know when you can go home, or if your home will even be there tomorrow. Atleast you guys are safely out of the way, but I hope that you can return home as soon as possible.
 
Good luck Danoff; hopefully it will be extinguished soon enough.

I'd offer some rain, but we've had a comparative drought in the past 2 months.
 
Good luck with the house, Dan. Just stay safe. I hope you found somewhere to stay that let you bring your dog too.
 
Sorry to hear that it is still progressing towards your home Dan. I really do wish you the best and hope you have a house to return to. The skies over Colorado are hazy from the smoke of your fire. The sunrise was a deep red this morning, a very ominous and ire sight to be seen.
 
I watched my house on the news last night with fire in the hills all around. Over and over the news helicopters were showing my street, my house, and the hills right next to it engulfed in flames (about 5 densely packed houses away from me). But the flames didn't come in the exact form I had expected.

I assumed that the fire was going to burn down all of the wilderness surrounding my neighborhood. What I didn't expect was that the fire crews would decide that the fire was better had on their terms and would intentionally light our hill on fire. Yesterday around 4 pm they started launching flares into our hillside to set a backfire. The backfire was quite dramatic and the news helicopters were all over it - especially with the proximity to houses. But in essence my house was never in any serious danger, because the fire that came closest to it was planned and set by the fire fighting crews.

Still, it was surreal to watch my house on the news and see flames shooting up at the end of my street.

I'm still under mandatory evacuation, but I went as close as I could to my place this morning and saw that the hills all around are full of smoldering ash. I just got word that the evacuation has been lifted for the community adjacent to us, so hopefully we're next. I'd like to sleep in my own bed tonight.

It has occurred to me that I doesn't really get any closer than this before the house is gone. It simply isn't possible for a forest fire to advance any further toward me and not be burning down my street. I'm afraid that I'm becoming one of those annoying people that has a lot of respect for firefighters.

As an aside, my wife happened to be driving by our area on the freeway and saw an enormous fireball erupt from our neighborhood. At the same time she was listening to a news helicopter describe the scene and he freaked out about the pillar of fire that had erupted. He then went on to report that 75 homes in our area had been lost. At that point, my wife was absolutely convinced that our house was gone. It wasn't until I showed her the live news footage of our house intact that she calmed down. It turned out that the pilar of flame was from the backfire that the fire crews were setting, and the 75 home report was a mistake - a very badly timed mistake.
 
Good news. 👍 I'm glad it all worked out well for you. I hope the same can be said for all of your family and friends.

Danoff
I'm afraid that I'm becoming one of those annoying people that has a lot of respect for firefighters.
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You can respect them a lot without being annoying. I know a few and something as simple as a short phone call or small note to the local fire house means a lot to them and no one else you know gets annoyed by it.
 
65260192.png



Downtown Los Angeles is located at the bottom of the image. The fire started near where the 2 (to the north) forks in the middle of the angeles forest. From there it worked its way down to La Canada. From there it spread to Altadena and Briggs Terrace. After that to Crescenta Heights, Tujunga (where it burns today) and Sunland (where it also burns today). The back side of the fire is approaching Acton (much farther north). Basically, the entire Angeles forest is burning down. The fire was already over 100,000 acres yesterday.

Here's another perspective.

AboveDowntownLA.jpg


The hills in the background (not the one closer to downtown) are basically all on fire. Here's another perspective:




More Pics:
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Timelapse Video
http://vimeo.com/6325431
(that building complex toward the bottom of the video is NASA JPL)
 
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Make sure to take some pictures of the area around your house when you get back. I can't imagine fires that enormous, all I've seen (or smelt rather) were some smaller forest fires in my area last year.
 
Glad everything looks okay Dan. Out of interest, for those who have lost houses, what's the insurance situation like?
 
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^ The Red Circle is my house. The peninsula next to it has burned to a crisp since that image was taken. I was able to get back into my house last night.
 
Does your house have a lot of smoke damage to it? Glad to hear to survived at least.
 
Joey D
Does your house have a lot of smoke damage to it? Glad to hear to survived at least.
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Doesn't seem to. The area is a bit smokey, but not really that bad actually. Aside from the crispy hill next to us and the police barricade checking IDs on the way in, it's business as usual.
 
Holy crap, dude. Glad to hear your house made it, but talk about close...
 
Solid Lifters
You know, I've noticed that the places here in SoCal that never had fires within the past 6-7 years all seem to have fires now. It's like fires are being intentionally set systematically in select patches of land that would prevent one huge, major fire from occurring.

Is it firefighters creating job security? BLM setting fires trying to destroy destructive insects? I cannot believe that all these fires are set my arsonists or by accidental causes all within a short span of time.
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Sarcasm? If us people didn't put the fires out all the time we wouldn't have to deal with the enormous ones that grow these days. We put them all out, the underbrush keeps growing, and eventually the gates of hell open up, set the city ablaze and kill people. If we didn't live there and didn't put the dang fires out all the time there would just be small fires here and there often, and the underbrush would be well managed. There'd still be fires, yes, but not the random huge ones we deal with.
 
The last two times I was on the Gulf Coast they were doing control fires in the swamp areas to keep the underbrush under control. Hearing that these fires are in areas that have 50-60 years worth of underbrush I wonder if there have been any big initiatives in the area to do control fires so that when these things break out they are more manageable.

Anyone know?
 
FoolKiller
The last two times I was on the Gulf Coast they were doing control fires in the swamp areas to keep the underbrush under control. Hearing that these fires are in areas that have 50-60 years worth of underbrush I wonder if there have been any big initiatives in the area to do control fires so that when these things break out they are more manageable.

Anyone know?
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The media went to the area where it started. They then started asking the 'wrong' (correct) questions, and were ordered off the premises.

The area where the Station Fire started appeared to have some work being done, that could have caused the fire. All I know, it was the local government (US Forest Service) that caused it. How I know? As soon as the media discovered the starting point of the fire, the locals in charged starting blaming the state and federal officials for not clearing enough brush or giving the locals enough money to do it. Whenever somebody tries to blame somebody else for what happens, it's obvious they're guilty.
 
Solid Lifters
The media went to the area where it started. They then started asking the 'wrong' (correct) questions, and were ordered off the premises.

The area where the Station Fire started appeared to have some work being done, that could have caused the fire. All I know, it was the local government (US Forest Service) that caused it. How I know? As soon as the media discovered the starting point of the fire, the locals in charged starting blaming the state and federal officials for not clearing enough brush or giving the locals enough money to do it. Whenever somebody tries to blame somebody else for what happens, it's obvious they're guilty.
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What kind of work were they doing?
 

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