Author Topic: So Cal wildfires...  (Read 19122 times)

Offline jadesfire

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #45 on: July 18, 2004, 07:32 PM »
Thinking of you and Patty, Matt.  
Beth

SilverZ

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #46 on: July 18, 2004, 08:01 PM »
I'm guessing since he hasn't checked in today that he's be evacuated...you SoCal guys know that or not?  His town, neighborhood etc

No, he's there, just spoke with him.

The fire is on the other side of the freeway, which isn't very populated (at least not like the west side), but the news is saying they've evacuated about 400 homes. No structures lost.

Offline JoshEEE

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #47 on: July 19, 2004, 12:20 PM »
Still no Matt news since last night?
I hope he's ok down there.

Matt....give us a shout out when you get to some place with a PC.
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Offline JediMAC

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #48 on: July 19, 2004, 01:29 PM »
Hey everybody.  Thanks for the concerns and well wishes (AGAIN).  We've had the computer packed up along with a lot of our other things, hence my silence since Saturday's post here...

Very pleased to say we're fine, and still have a home standing, and still have a very large Star Wars collection to enjoy.   ;)  It's been a hellacious weekend monitoring our 'Foothill Fire' though, but fortunately the winds shifted direction to the Northeast pretty good on Saturday evening, keeping us somewhat out of immediate danger even though the fire was just about 3/4 mile away.

The fire's been burning all the way up our local 14 freeway, which has been serving effectively as a firebreak keeping "our side" safe so far.  The firemen have basically just been letting it burn right down to the edge of the freeway, but making sure it doesn't hop the freeway over to our side, which is a very real concern with the insane winds happening, and the massive amounts of ash flying around everywhere.  We've got a good inch of it on our back patio and in the front yard, not to mention our entire house smells like smoke (even though we've had the windows closed).  Pretty nasty stuff...  There's also been firedropping planes and helicopters flying over every few minutes too, which is pretty crazy considering the flying conditions (like zero visibility).

Still looks like our whole valley is under a nuclear bomb cloud, with an eerie orange glow shining through from time to time.  Add to that all the black, charred hills all around us, and it really feels and looks like a war zone.  The first 6 miles of my drive in to work today were all along burnt out hills.  Very depressing.  The thing's still burning pretty good today as well, though not quite as close to us now - a little over a mile away, though there's been a number of smaller flare ups closer than that.  We live off the Placerita Canyon exit, which is where a lot of the action's still taking place, on the opposite side of the freeway.  They had to evacuate another 1,600 homes last night now that the fire's approaching the populated areas, and has burned right up to some houses yards.  We never got a mandatory evacuation announcement, but most of our neighborhood was totally packed up and ready to go on Saturday afternoon.  Last I heard, the fire was 39% contained, and there still hasn't been any structures lost, amazingly.  Definitely a result of the firefighters great work, as they've always got defensive perimeters around any threatened structures, whereas they'll just let the fire burn if nothing important is around.



Patty and I spent a lot of the day yesterday taking cold bottles of Gatorade around to all the fire fighters (Patty's idea, of course).  Then we spent most of the evening and night up on some lookout areas, observing the fires at very close range.  I've gotta tell you that there's nothing more amazing and impressive in nature than watching a 30 foot high wall of fire a couple miles long, just marching up and down hillsides in one long, continuous line.  Also saw a bunch of firefighters starting huge backfires too.  Pretty cool seeing them shoot flare after flare into the brush, and seeing a huge blaze erupt.  Almost looked like something out of a Sci Fi flick, since it was night time and dark out, but you'd see these little purple/red balls of flame flying 20 feet through the sky, way up on a nearby hill.



Just a crazy and very stressful experience all the way around, especially considering the brush from the neighboring hills goes right up to our back patio, plus the fact that my stupid ass still hasn't gotten contents insurance (the structure is covered though).  We've actually still got all of our stuff packed up, just in case there's another shift in the winds and something kicks up closer to us again.  Hopefully that won't be the case though.  (fingers crossed)

Thanks again for the concern everyone, and I'll keep ya' posted if anything changes...

- Matt

P.S.  The start to the fire supposedly occurred when a red-tailed hawk got electrocuted on a nearby power line, and dropped (on fire) into the nearby brush, sparking the entire blaze.   :-\
« Last Edit: July 19, 2004, 01:33 PM by JediMAC »

Offline Jim

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #49 on: July 19, 2004, 01:38 PM »
Glad to hear the wife and you are okay Matt.  

Offline Scott

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #50 on: July 19, 2004, 01:47 PM »
Thanks for the update Matt, you still planning on leaving for San Diego?  Or are you going to stay at home????

Offline DSJ™

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #51 on: July 19, 2004, 01:49 PM »
Good to hear from ya Matt & very glad both of you are OK.  :)

Offline JediMAC

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #52 on: July 19, 2004, 01:52 PM »
Still planning on heading down on Wednesday, but if there's a turn for the worse with the fires, I might have to postpone.  But considering there's not a whole lot left to burn near our place, hopefully the fire will stay away...

I'll probably just have to play it by ear.

Offline Matt

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #53 on: July 19, 2004, 02:00 PM »
I guess it's safe for me to send the check now, huh, Flanders?






















Great to hear that you and the wife and the home and the stuff are doing okay, Matt. . .
"The good news is that all that blood is actually ketchup. The bad news, however, is that all that ketchup is actually blood."

Offline Jeff

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #54 on: July 19, 2004, 02:15 PM »
Glad to hear all you SoCal guys are OK.

Those fires are nuts, man.  Absolutely nuts.  Seeign the pictures is probably nothing like seeing it in person though I'll bet!

Tell Patty, "Nice move with the Gatorade!"  I'm sure those firefighters really appreciated it!

:)

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Offline JoshEEE

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #55 on: July 19, 2004, 02:41 PM »
Nice to hear things are ok.
Where were those pictures taken? Or...did you take them yourself? That DOES look like a movie scene.

Has this given you any more consideration into moving the hell out of the sticks and to somewhere with a little more concrete and a little less brown grass?  ;D

Where is your stuff packed up anyway? In the cars? In a storage unit? Rent an emergency U-haul?

I'm glad the winds have changed though...that's great news.


Hopefully in two days we are still going to be hoisting them back at the non-Coyote Ugly-but-just-as-good bar I am headed over to.  :)
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Offline JediMAC

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #56 on: July 19, 2004, 03:19 PM »
Check?  Sure.  Cup didn't quite go out yet though Matt.  Hopefully tomorrow!   :-*

As for the Gatorade, I just talked to the Mrs., and she's still passing the stuff out as we speak.  She's so excited with the kick ass job the firefighters are doing, under such hot and horrid circumstances (and with all that heavy gear on), that she's been buying caseloads of Gatorade at our local Costco, and driving all over the place looking for firefighters to give them to.  They've all been very thankful and nice to her, with one exception where a fireman actually said "No thanks.  I'm fine."  Pissed Patty off sumthin' fierce!   :P

I really wish we had a digital camera to take some pix of this madness.  Even our regular camera is out of film, so I won't have too much in the way of keepsakes from the craziness, other than a couple lung fulls of really bad air...  I pulled those pix off CNN.com and FoxNews.com.  They're from right across the freeway from us, in the Placerita Canyon area.  Looks pretty similar to the stuff we watched burning last night.

As for my SW stuff, it's scattered all over Southern California, in 5 different places.  I have about a third of it at our house, but it's so chaotically disorganized that I wouldn't even know where to start as far as what to grab.  I did put a few things in my car: several containers that had one of each loose figure up through the end of POTJ, and a box of the VHTF carded stuff (TF Vader, Sacul, MOTDS, etc.), but that was about it.  Most of my modern carded collection would've been toast, since there was no room to bring it along.  What's funny is that I wasn't too concerned about losing the other contents in the house, like furniture and stuff, since that can be picked out and purchased fairly easily again (albeit costly), but the thought of trying to piece together a huge chunk of my SW collection again was rather overwhelming and scary.   :-\

Offline Morgbug

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #57 on: July 19, 2004, 04:19 PM »
Damn birds.  

glad to hear you guys are doing ok. Besides, if your modern stuff burns, you're welcome to all the crap I have in reserve that nobody else wants.  Having your stuff burn would help me out quite a bit ;)  j/k
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Offline JediMAC

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #58 on: July 19, 2004, 06:14 PM »
Besides, if your modern stuff burns, you're welcome to all the crap I have in reserve that nobody else wants.

You know that I don't collect that bi/tri/quad logo $h!t.   ::)




(but thanks for the offer anyway   :-*)

Offline Matt

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Re: So Cal wildfires...
« Reply #59 on: July 19, 2004, 06:16 PM »
You know that I don't collect that bi. . .

Hmmm.  Always thought you were into the bi scene, for some reason.

Huh.
"The good news is that all that blood is actually ketchup. The bad news, however, is that all that ketchup is actually blood."