7 posts tagged “fire”

This past weekend the Beloved and I took a trip up to Pasadena. The reason for the visit was the last of her Christmas presents, which were tickets to see the Cal Phil perform Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (some of her favorites).

Moreover, we coupled the opportunity to get together with some friends that we too-rarely get to see. We got together with them on Saturday afternoon at their home, went out for a great dinner and went to the concert. The orchestra played all six concertos, which made for a long concert (I don’t think we got out until after 11:00), but they did a really good job. Great day.

On thing that could have spoiled the day was that it’s apparently the start of another wildfire season in Southern California. On Saturday, it was a scorcher – near 100 and a big wildfire started up in the Sierra Madre region just southeast of Pasadena. It was a little disturbing – especially after the horrendous fires in San Diego last fall – that we could see the flames from our hotel window when we returned from the concert. Some folks were evacuated, but no damage was done to any homes or structures.

On Sunday, we spent the day at the Huntington Library and Gardens, which I had never been to before. I thought it was great. Wonderful collection of art, history, antique books, and gardens that kept me more interested together than any one of them would have alone. Also, ducking into one of the tiny museums was a good respite from strolling in ~100 degree gardens.

One thing you realize is that the Huntington is a massive library – and they have a great collection of historical books. We were able to see an original Gutenberg Bible and a first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost among others. The scientist in me got a charge of seeing an original copy of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia – one of the most important “popular science” books of all time and an illustration of the new science of microscopy.

The other highpoint was walking around the different gardens on the Huntington grounds. The roses were really in bloom and folks were enjoying walking around and sampling their array of colors and fragrances. As gorgeous as they were, I think I liked the cactus and succulent garden – which was also in bloom (though not nearly as crowded) – the best. There’s something about their ability to thrive in the harshest of environments that makes me really enjoy seeing them.

On Monday, we slept in and had a nice easy mid-day drive back to San Diego.  Not a bad weekend at all.

This was such a strange past week with fires, and the evacuations of our home and the clean-up.  It makes you think about a lot of things.  But this past week is also worth remembering for a number of personal reasons, too.  Last Tuesday would have been my mom’s 83rd birthday, so that got me thinking.  And today (the 30th) marks the two-year anniversary of her death.

So this confluence of fire and home and family got me thinking of one of my mom’s favorite stories to tell on me – and this seems like the right day to do it.  Mom would lean back and say, “Oh Stephen, do you remember that day you almost burned the house down?”

The Ancestral Betz Home was a corner row house in Camden NJ.  It had a ground level basement and a one-car garage.  The garage and basement had side-by-side doors that led onto the sidewalk (so you could quickly get from one to the other) but no connector.

Besides my dad's trusty Plymouth Fury (actually, that car was a piece of crap, but I will use nostalgic license to decide it was a good car), mom would save our newspapers in the garage that would ever few months be picked up by this really old guy in a beat up station wagon because he could recycle them.  Now this was the 70s – there was no green movement.  This was the equivalent of picking up aluminum cans off the street to get the deposit back.

Now it was the summer and I was a kid (maybe 7 or 8) and I used to like to play with “punks”.  Does anyone else remember these?  I don’t know why we played with them.  Probably because you had to use fire to light them – and fire was cool.  And that they smoked for a long time – and, of course, smoking was cool. (Remember, it’s the early 70s).

Anyway, one day I was playing with some punks in the garage, and got bored and set the punks down and left.  Did I set them down on the concrete garage floor?  No.  I set them on the months-old stacks of dried newspapers.

Of course, a few minutes later my brother and I notice the aroma of smoke.  We rush into the garage and discover a conflagration quickly getting underway (the garage was right under the kitchen which was plumbed with natural gas – so yeah, bad).  My brother (6 years older than me) and I decide that we should form a bucket brigade between the sink in the basement and the garage.  Our bucket: a 24 oz plastic cup of the 7-Eleven variety of that era.

We do not make much progress on the fire.

A few moments later my sister (who is ~20 years old at this time) rushes in and screams, “What the hell are you morons doing?!?!  Put the fire out with the hose!”

Yes – in our panic, my brother and I missed the obvious solution of turning on the garage faucet that already had a hose attached to it.  Opting instead for transporting and throwing cups of water on the blaze.  With Barb’s keen direction, the fire was out quickly and no damage was done.

In my nostalgic haze, I recall that we all sat down later, discussed my poor decision making, brainstormed on ideas to prevent such a thing happening in the future, reviewed basic fire safety, and then went out for ice cream.

And if you believe that, I got a Plymouth Fury to sell you.

When was the last time you were happy to drive to work?  Yesterday and today, I sure was.

As if coming out of a long time-warp nightmare, the rhythms of life here in metropolitan San Diego are slowly getting back to normal.  The fires are still burning in the east, but there is hope that everything might be under control by sometime next week.  Today, everyone that was staying at Qualcomm Stadium (once up to 12000 people) should be able to return -- as have most of the nearly 600,000 people temporarily displaced by this disaster.

Of course, with things settling down certain less productive activities have commenced – namely finger-pointing…

There was a state rep looking to make a name for himself by complaining that the regulations governing the use of military aircraft kept authorities from using them in the fires – even though they were ready to go as soon as planes were permitted to fly over the fires because of the extreme-wind conditions.

Even better, this morning I heard a report of a UCSD professor claiming “I told you so” because two years ago he said we needed more taxes to pay for more fire stations.  I’m sure he’ll get some air time.  Maybe he can even get on the Today Show.

Yep, back to normal.

Hey everyone --  first off, I can't even begin to tell you how much your thoughts and prayers have meant to The Beloved and me during this whole event -- its really been a remarkable couple of days.  The one thing that has become so clear is the willingness of people to help one another.  Despite all the fear and all the devastation, this has actually re-affirmed my faith in people.

Evacuating last night was really strange -- when we heard our area was under evacuation, we got moving -- there was purpose, but no panic.  We made sure our neighbors had all heard the news and we got going (we went to a friend's home that was out of the path of things).  Driving away and not knowing I was tense, but I knew that everything I really cared about was in one of our cars -- actually, really all I cared about was that The Beloved and Eutaw were safe -- anything else could be replaced with enough time, money and hassle.  The good news is that we were allowed to return this morning.

The devastation is truly awful -- probably >1000 homes lost already, and the different fires aren't even a little contained yet.  Fortunately, the winds have died off considerably today, so the fire-authorities think they might be able to fight them more effectively today.

We still have the cars packed and ready to go should we need to get out of harm's way again.

Again, thank you so so much for your thoughts and prayers.  I'd say that you guys have also re-affirmed my faith in humanity, but I already knew you guys rock.  I seriously owe you all a beer (except for you Joie, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for yours....).

Hey everyone -- got the call -- we're heading to ground further west and south of here.

Will check in when I have the chance.  Hopefully, it will be from The Aerie with no problems.

Please give thoughts and prayers to everyone here in San Diego and Southern California.

Hey there -- below is the visible satellite from San Diego county, where you can see the smoke from the current wildfires.

We're in the middle of the two central fires.  Folks nearby (a few miles away) have been evacuated, but so far we're ok.  The cars are packed and we're ready if we have to go.

Lots of homes lost so far and the winds aren't likely to start dying off until tomorrow.

Will keep you posted.

Normally, this would be the point in the weekend where I'd post about something interesting that had happened over the last couple of days.  Unfortunately, those thoughts are getting pushed aside as two major wildfires are growing in San Diego County, being fanned by strong Santa Ana winds.

For any of you that remember the wildfires that swept through San Diego County in October 2003, the smell of smoke in the air is a really unpleasant reminder (those fires burned >250,000 acres and claimed >2000 homes).  This afternoon a couple of fires erupted in the county -- one near the town of Julian (where I'd gone with my brother a couple of weeks ago), and one in the southern part of the county near the border.

I just (5:30 pm PDT) took this picture from our back balcony -- you can see the smoke hanging heavily in the air.

 I thought we might cap a nice weekend with a relaxing evening and maybe a Netflix movie.  Now I think it will be spent watching news updates and hoping for the wind to die down.