My first California wildfire ... January 8, 2007!
The fire began at 5:01pm across the street from Pepperdine University. The green grass area in the picture is Alumni Park- an open area on Pepperdine's campus. The cars (left to right) are driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, which divded the area on fire from campus.
The entire area was on fire within 10 minutes. Over 200+ firefighers were on scene. I had a meeting at 6:00pm, so I was on campus to watch the fire progress.
In Alumni Park, there is a water reclamation "pond" (bottom left-hand corner) that I had been told when I arrived in August was used by helicopters when there are fires in the area. I had my first opportunity to watch this occur, along side 20 mph winds. The pilots would dip the front of the helicopters toward the pond and suck up water into the belly of the chopper. It was amazing!
This picture was taken around 5:20pm. The fire had fully engulfed that area (approx. 10 acres) within a half hour. Since the wind was blowing towards the water, the fire continued down a canyon and destroyed 4 homes, including Susanne Sommers' home.
4 comments:
Oh my word! That sounds so scary to me.
Pretty spectacular. They do things in a big way in CA. Sorry to hear you had to put on you polar fleece because of the low temperatures. Try below 23 degrees for over 3 weeks.
Wow... it worked, the posting to your blog. Thanks for you help. Glad to hear you car is dependable again.
It kind of made me sick when they said that only 5 or 6 houses were destroyed, with damages of over 60 million dollars. Those people have way too much money.
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