FIRE! / Judy

smoke, flames & sirens

This morning about 9:00 we noticed the light looked funny outside, then we saw it was from smoke. I wondered if it was smoke from the big Santa Barbara fires a hundred miles south, but then we heard all sorts of sirens.

When we went outside to look, we saw the big hill right beside us was on fire! The whole hill was smokey and we could even see flames about half way up. Fire trucks were there from several of the surrounding towns and they blocked off the streets heading up the hill. Someone said there were firefighters right in the back yards of some of the uppermost houses. We watched a couple planes circling, then dropping flame retardant. They'd circle 3 or 4 times, then drop their load.

an offer to evacuate grandpa

It's been about two hours since we first noticed the smoke and the fire seems to be contained or even out in most places. At one point we got a call from the home health people who've been coming for physical therapy with Grandpa since his fall a couple weeks ago. They wanted to know if we'd need any help with Grandpa if we had to evacuate. Of course he's sleeping through the whole thing and we'll tell him about it tonight. But what an exciting way to start the day, especially since it looks like all is well now. I mean the fire was RIGHT THERE!