(Fire Info Links are in the next post down!)
While the Station Fire rages on, it has passed on through our neck of the woods, and my efforts maintaining the links on the Fire posting of this blog will be decreasing. I do intend on leaving up the fire info posted, as an informational resource for others that are still dealing with the Station fire. The links are very relevant for each of the affected communities still in the path of the fire.
The evacuation notice has been lifted for my parents' neighborhood, and they are back home. Unfortunately, Mom says that there were 4 or 5 looters discovered on the hill when residents started coming back. Fortunately, law enforcement has already caught a couple of them. They did not get my parents house, but some neighbors were not so lucky.
The backyard burned almost up to the retaining wall around the patio, but the house survived just fine. The firefighters had moved all the patio furniture, BBQ's , etc around to the side of the property, away from the house and heat, and had worked hard to make sure that they did not damage anything. Most of the larger trees had been "lollypopped" (lower branches removed) by my parents a while ago, and so, survived because the fire could not get established in them. There are about 59 houses at the top of the hill Virtually all of the homes back yards border on the canyon or National Forest. Almost every home had fire come within 20-50' of the house, yet not a single structure was lost.
I would like to take a moment to thank all the firefighters, law enforcement personnel, city, county, state, and federal employees, and the residents and businesses and other volunteers of the local communities who all pulled together to make it through this disaster. I also want to thank many of the folks on-line who, although I have never met them face to face, are becoming good friends, and helped me to develop the informational links in my blog, promote the resource to others, and kept me on top of what was happening in my childhood town so far away.
Special thanks go to twitter peeps, @benboychuk, @PEP010, @philhulett, @indie_press, @thereallacanada, @Moeskido, @pixelesh, @gwc11713, @hanineal, @foleypod, @mdstorlie, @nanther, @macgenie, @JamesProps, @bobmorse, @indexing, @k8jonez, @clarikim, @LA_Fires, @cyndie23, @theappgirl, @lamaupin, @heathercollins, @dzurillaville, @wildfireviewer, @AllHitman007, @Jeffpfile, @ddwheeler27, @SamWickersham, @denagirl626, @susankitchens, @rehi, @akitchen, @brianwatkins, @khabalox, and most of all @vurayav, @ifipaan, @lauria, @joeepheremal, @christylb65 and @wasabineko all of whom either provided information, retweets, link posts, and/or encouragement while I was vicariously living through this fire on Twitter, and developing this list of fire link resources.
Finally, I especially want to remember Captain Ted Hall and Fire Fighter Specialist Arnie Quinones, who were killed in the Mt. Gleason area on Sunday while fighting this fire. My condolences and sincere thanks go to their families for the efforts of these two individuals who gave their lives trying to save the lives and property of others.
@GregGehr