Jumping the Moon Dairy - the next chapter

[farmerjan]

Am so sorry to learn of the threat to your "extended family. Have been hearing about the fires here on the news now, so I am sure they have gotten bad. Prayers for all concerned. Sure wish we could send some of this cold wet miserable rain and such out your way. We could use a month of no precip right about now.

 

[lalabugs]

Praying your family does not lose their home.

Paradise is I think an hour from her.

The fire is horrible. I've been keeping an eye on it. My sister called me asking me to find any information on a fire near her.

It's an hour north of my sister.
When my sister called me to look it up it was only 10 acres. It jumped from 10 to thousands in a couple hours. With only a few roads leading out of paradise. It became a really bad situation fast! The wind pushed the fire rapidly. I was updating my sister all day. She was worried it would turn and head towards her.

Listening to the scanner was heart breaking. Hospital staff stuck in the basement after the fire approached. People abandoning cars, running for their lives. Police and fire fighters pulling people from their cars and putting them into Walgreens. Fire fighters defending the building trying to save the people. Eventually they were able to bus the people out of paradise.

So far it's 90,000 acres burned. 6,453 homes, 260 commercial buildings have burned.

Praying for everyone. I've been through a fast moving fire. The camp fire is far worse than the one I went through.
I pray they can get a handle on it before the winds are suppose to pick back up this weekend.

 

[babsbag]

@lalabugs is correct, the fire is about 50 miles from me but the smoke is sure rolling in tonight. In addition to the loss of land and structures 9 people have died so far. Being a native Californian I am used to fires but this is crazy, my heart just hurts. @Mike CHS if they are in Paradise most likely their home is gone. There is some speculation that this was caused by a downed power line as there was a reported outage in the area where the fire started about 15 minutes before the fire started. The utility company (PG&E) is already in a ton of trouble over other fires that their lines have started, I think 7 or 8 or them this year. They are being sued (of course) and the public utility commission gave them permission to raise rates to cover the law suits. How do you like that? You burn down a community and then raise their rates to cover YOUR loss. I am not convinced that this is really all their fault though, it is sometimes just hard for man made things to stand up to 70 MPH winds, sometimes no planning is enough. They have a new plan in place that they were going to cut power to some areas during high winds but for some reason that didn't happen...perhaps it should have.

The pups are doing great, you would never know that they had been sick. The vet that treated them was certain it was Parvo. When I asked her why they didn't run a second Parvo test she said that they were out of them. So when puppy came home I talked to my vet and she said that he would still be shedding the virus so I had them do the test and came back with a very very strong NEGATIVE. Puppy did not have Parvo. I will never know what they had, Cryptosporidium is a possibility, but no way to know for sure. Just glad that they are better. I heard them all barking tonight when the big dogs were on patrol, I love listening to them growing up.

 

[Baymule]

My heart goes out to those affected by the fires. California has to deal with this yearly. In 2011-2012 Texas was in drought, sometimes it looked like the whole state was on fire. But nothing like this. And certainly not every year. Babs do you have a fire escape plan? Wow. How would you even choose what/who to grab and run with?

 

[babsbag]

My fire escape plan is to stay here. We have no brush around us, the trees are all limbed up. I have cement siding and comp, roof, a 5000 gallon pool, a generator and transfer switch for the well, and a fire pump. My wild land firefighter husband tells me that we will be fine. He spent many a Nov. fighting those Santa Ana wind driven fires in So Cal so I hope that he is right. If not...I take the dogs, cats, and birds and make a run for it and leave him here to start the generator.

 

[Mike CHS]

Those fire fighters seem to know their stuff.

 

[Bruce]

a 5000 gallon pool

50,000? Even our 24' above ground pool is about 14,000.

 

[babsbag]

@Bruce It is above ground and something like 12x16. It's tiny, just enough to get wet in.

 

[babsbag]

Those fire fighters seem to know their stuff.

It is a dangerous job for sure and if you don't know your stuff you die and sometimes you die anyways. DH and I were having a discussion yesterday about the merits of staying in a car stuck in traffic while fleeing a fire and getting out and running. I voted for the running, he told me I was dead. I never worried too much about him fighting wild land fires and I was thankful he was not going into burning buildings. He was the fire engine operator so most of the time he got to stay with his engine...unless of course they put him on a helicopter and dropped him in the back country somewhere. That was a common occurrence too. I was a lot younger and a lot more naive back then too.

 

[OneFineAcre]

I'm glad the pups are better and I hope the fires stay far away from you