Safe, and Evacuated...

Debbie and I left our house earlier this evening, after the police came knocking on doors and putting evacuation notices on gates and mailboxes. We still don't see any fire imminently threatening Lawson Valley or our home; my best theory is that the firefighters were worried about the need to evacuate Lawson Valley in a hurry if the winds shifted and threatened the valley. It may also be true that the authorities didn't realize our valley has multiple exits, as there is only one public road in and out. During fire threats, several private property owners in the valley open normally-gated private roads to help with people evacuating themselves or their animals (horses are a particular problem in our valley, as there are so many of them).

In any case, we're now snug in our friend's house in Chula Vista, along with all our animals and what other stuff we care about that we could fit in our two vehicles. Our house is still safe (we know because our answering machine answers!), and we see no immediate threat. We're hoping to be able to go back home soon, and of course we're hoping the firefighters keep the Harris Fire well away from our neighborhood.

Our best wishes to all our friends and neighbors who are evacuated with us...

Probable Evacuation...

A neighbor just called to let us know the police had been there, and were telling her that we had a mandatory evacuation. We're shutting down and preparing to leave.

Good luck everyone...

Harris Fire Update...

I just captured these two photos from the Lyons Peak cameras. They've got us feeling a bit optimistic at the moment…

Our first reason for optimism is the situation on Elena Peak (top photo). The actively burning area is much reduced over what we've seen over the past few hours. We know that aircraft are working the fire, 'cause we hear and see them going over our heads. I also hear chatter on the scanner from the CDF crews mentioning the air support frequently.

Our second reason for optimism isn't visible in these two captures: all of the fires that we could see in Deerhorn Valley are out. There were a lot of small hotspots spewing smoke just a few hours ago; now there are none. I'm certain that's due to the ground crews hard at work.

Our third reason for optimism is that we learned that the summits of our local mountains – at least the ones capped with electronic equipment and antennas – are high priorities for the firefighters. This is for the simple reason (though I never thought of it!) that their communications equipment is on those peaks. This makes us optimistic for a reason that may not be immediately obvious: the four cameras on Lyons Peak are our single best source of information about the fire. I don't believe I'd be willing to stay here with a fire this close if I didn't have the information those cameras are providing. So to know that they are a high priority for the firefighters (because they happen to be on the same towers as the CDF communications) is really good news for us.

And the fourth reason for optimism can be seen at right. This is from the camera looking west from Lyons Peak. While there is a lot of smoke in the air, the number and size of actively burning areas appears to be greatly reduced. The one sour note is that the smoke plume in the distance, on the west or northwest side of San Miguel Mountain, looks a bit bigger than it did a few hours ago.

Debbie and I are feeling very lucky at this point. We've had (and continue to have) some anxious times, but nothing like what our evacuated friends, co-workers, and so many other San Diegans have had. We know from our own experience in past evacuations that it is just agonizing to not know what the situation with your home is…

Harris Fire Update...

The web site where I get the MODIS satellite thermal imagery has been up and down all morning, but I managed to capture it an hour or so ago (at right, click to enlarge). I can't tell for sure how old the satellite data is; it could be as much as 8 hours old. The red circles are the most recent hot spots; the orange the hot spots seen up to 24 hours ago, and the black hot spots more than 24 hours old.

The green dot is where our home is, the yellow dot where my niece (who is going to USD) lives. The area I've circled in purple is the Barrett Canyon/Barrett Dam/Elena Peak area, the flank of the fire we are most concerned about for our own home's safety. The area I've circled in blue is the San Miguel Mountain area. For those of you not familiar with our area, this small mountain is a prominent peak near the town of Spring Valley, topped with a large number of antennas providing all kinds of services (including TV and radio) to much of San Diego County. This mountain burned over last night, apparently destroying all the antennas and associated electronics. Also on the flanks of that same mountain is a very large electrical substation, providing a substantial fraction of the power to San Diego County – this also burned over and was destroyed, according to news reports we watched this morning. The fire on this mountain is greatly reduced (again, according to news reports), both by Mother Nature being nice to us and because of the efforts of the firefighters (especially helicopter crews dropping water).

What is most dramatic about this data, of course, is the sheer scope of the fires hitting us here. Our local news stations are reporting well over 1,000 homes lost (500 in the Fallbrook area alone), and over 200,000 acres burned. The mayor of San Diego City has been saying since yesterday that this fire is worse than the Cedar Fire four years ago; for all of us who lived through that fire, such an assessment borders on the incredible. In one way, our current fires are far less awful than the Cedar fire: the loss of life and number of serious injuries is far lower. We are most thankful for that…

Harris Fire Update...

The photo at right (click to enlarge it) is stitched together from three of the cameras on Lyons Peak (E, S, and W, left-to-right). This panorama shows the entire northern flank of the Harris Fire, from the Barrett Dam area on the left to San Miguel Mountain on the right. I'm sure this looks bad to anyone seeing it – but there's actually some good news visible in these photos.

The first bit of good news is that the winds have died down. Earlier the smoke from each fire was blowing right along the ground (along with the embers spreading the fire). Now the smoke rises, and since I captured these photos that has become even more dramatic. Looming in our southern sky now is a large, ugly smoke plume that looks way too close. If it wasn't for these cameras showing me where the fires are, I'd think they were much closer…

The second bit of good news is that the number of individual hot spots is way, way down – and the intensity of those remaining is also way down. I can't be sure why that is – could be just good luck and lighter winds, or it could be the efforts of the firefighters – but whatever the cause, I'd judge the immediate threat to us to be considerably lower than the early morning hours this morning.

Lawson Valley Update...

Debbie and I are fine, and still in our home in Lawson Valley. I'm feeling a bit more optimistic than earlier this morning – the winds have largely died down, and we hear fixed-wing tankers overhead moving toward the north flank of the Harris Fire that threatens us. Also we have finished our packing and are ready to leave, if need be, with about 15 minutes notice.

I'll be resuming my updates very shortly. But first, I have to say that we have been overwhelmed by the good wishes and offers of help from both our friends and people who are complete strangers and just happened to read my blog. If we have to leave, we must have 50 possible places to go! And that's not even mentioning all the offers of assistance with trucks, places for our animals, etc. Thank you, one and all – it's very heartwarming and comforting to know that help is available if we need it.

One last note: many people have written to thank me for “my” cameras on Lyons Peak. You all should know that those are not my cameras – they belong to HPWREN, which you can read all about at the link at the top of my camera page. All I did was to arrange the feeds on a single page, and to overlay them with place name markers…the HPWREN folks deserve the credit for providing the San Diego community with this great resource.

Fire Update...

Just a short message, folks, as Debbie and I are going to resume packing. While there still doesn't appear to be an imminent threat to our home, the north flank of the Harris Fire moved inexorably closer to us during the night. It overran parts of Deerhorn Valley, cresting the White Mountain/Mother Grundy Peak areas. The branch that ran up Barrett Creek appears to have reached the dam, and moved westward, up and over Elena Peak. All of these are several miles from our home, but all of them are a mile or so closer than yesterday. Not comforting at all. Worse, when the winds die down (and that is forecast for today), the fire will be able to move more quickly in our direction – and the fire crews are desparately short of resources and have been working (in some cases) for 36 hours with scarcely a break.

We're packing, with our fingers crossed, hoping that it is an unnecessary activity. Best wishes to all…