While
not quit a month since my last post, still long enough I guess.
I
have been working and planning for our trip to Lynden, Washington
starting next Thursday the 23rd. I do a little each day.
We
will make the trip in 8 days with little time for sight seeing. It
really doesn’t matter as we have made this same trip many times
before. A few of the nightly stops will be different this time but I
will report on those as we travel.
Now
however, we have a large fire burning to the West of us on the
coastal range. It started 3 days ago and has grown each day since. It
has been named the Sherpa Fire after the ranch where it started.
During the day the winds blow from West to East along the coast but
at night they shift to the South and blow down over the mountains
(called sundowner winds) causing the fire to cross Highway 101. In
places the center medium has burned and the highway has been closed
for the last 2 nights when this happens. Probably will be closed
again tonight. The sundowner winds have been 35 to 45 MPH which plays
havoc with attempts to control the fire. There are some pretty
dramatic photos on line of the fire at night. Check Google Images and
Sherpa Fire for those.
So
far the only building to burn was the pump station for the State Park
at El Capitan which was located way up a canyon. We have several
friends living on ranches in the fire area and are in contact with
them. It has been reported on TV that there have been losses to
avocados, lemons, and olive groves.
We
are about 10 miles from the fire I would guess and the standby
evacuation line is a road about 3 miles West of us. If they move it
closer to us, a lot of houses are in danger not only ours. If we are
forced to evacuate we will take the RV and move to one of the staging
areas set up for that and wait it out.
Smoke as seen from our backyard yesterday(sorry for the pole).
For
now we keep the house closed up to keep the smell of smoke out and
also the ash that falls. It hasn’t been too bad so far. However it
is supposed to get into the 90’s here on Monday which will mean
using fans to keep cool.
