California Fires!

[JCMaretti@aol.com]

 California Wildfires Out of Control - What you need to know!

	In case you haven't noticed, California is on fire!  As a City of Chico Firefighter, I feel very comfortable going to fires at other people's houses, but this week, contending with an out of control wildfire heading directly for my house, different feelings crossed my mind.  The usual calm confidence was replaced with the 3 A's: anxiety, anger and adrenaline. 
	 Monday evening, August 21st, we experienced a beautiful lightning storm.  Unfortunately, it was "dry lightning" - not associated with any significant rain.  In the morning, there were several small fires in Butte County.  After listening to my scanner and hearing the confident Incident Commander inform his Dispatch Center, "We have this under control," I loaded up the young horse into the trailer and headed out of town.  After all, there was no sense in letting a day off go to waste.  While my primary horse, Kahlua, is recuperating from her suspensory injury  (two weeks before Tevis), now is the time to get Cathy's endurance prospect Beholdd out on the trail.   I met a friend at Lake Oroville and we had a wonderful ride.  On the way back home, while still 30 miles away, I noticed that the small column of smoke near our house had grown - tremendously! Turning on my scanner in the truck I learned that California Department of Forestry was working over a dozen fires in the foothills.  The afternoon winds had picked up and most of these small fires were joining together to create a huge fire front that was headed right for our house.  The scanner was reporting that the before mentioned confident Incident Commander was now  frantically ordering additional resources and talking about mandatory evacuations!  Cathy was at work, so I called her and told her to meet me at home.  When I arrived home with the horse trailer, the smoke was heavy, but it seemed like the fire would miss us to the south.  Just in case, we casually  loaded the truck with photo albums, clothes, food and the fire safe previously filled with important documents and computer back-ups.  Cathy suggested that we start wrapping the horse's legs in case we actually had to leave.  Being a paid professional ;-) I thought that it was unnecessary - we wouldn’t really have to leave - but decided to help her - just in case.  I got one leg wrapped on Kahlua (her bad leg) when all hell broke loose.  The winds changed, the noise sounded like a jet engine and about 100 yards away a pine tree suddenly exploded into flames like a giant sparkler. On an ordinary working day I would be sporting a huge grin -  Firefighters just love this stuff - but not this time.  Cathy, who used to be a Volunteer Firefighter remained calm.  In her quiet, confident voice, she was able to quickly catch our other 2 horses.  They can sometimes be a little excitable and difficult to catch.  Today, they luckily came right away.  I think that they wanted to leave also.  As she was driving away, she saw numerous people walking horses down the main road headed out of town.  The traffic was so congested that she had a chance to talk with some. Most had friends meeting them at the edge of town, but some didn't even own a trailer  Most people were panicky and unprepared. 
	I stayed behind to try and save our house.  Kids, don't try this at home.  I had my protective clothing with me and have years of training and experience on my side.  Once you get the family, animals and photo albums packed, it's time to leave.  No house, stereo, or big screen TV is worth your life.  That's why you pay those annual insurance premiums.  The most important things in life are not things.
	We saved our house.  Others didn't.  Some say we were lucky.  I say you make your own luck.  The following is a list of things that made us "lucky":  Although we had a 50' clearance from our house to the forest, this spring, we hired a bulldozer and pushed the manzanita back another 100'.  This gave the Firefighters 150' of "defendable space".   Also, by having scanners at home and in the truck, we have access to more timely and accurate information than the media.  Cathy had left with the horses 20 minutes before the Sheriff’s Office came by to tell us about the mandatory evacuation.  If we had waited for them, there wouldn’t have been enough time to escape with the horses.  We also keep a "tidy" yard - no pine needles stacked up against the house.  Although I was busy sweeping the roof and  cleaning out the gutters in the few minutes that I had before the fire hit.  Another concern is electricity.  Power is often interrupted during a large fire or other emergency.  If you depend on a well for your water source, you might consider a generator. We have a 5kw 220v generator that can run most of  the house - although it has a difficult time keeping the hot tub at our preferred 106 degrees.  If you get a generator, have an electrician install a transfer switch so that you can run it without "back-feeding" electricity to the poor guy working on the power pole.  Another rule in our household is: always keep the horse trailer hooked up to the truck and at least one tank full of fuel.  We don't use the huge gas-guzzler for commuting anyway, so this is not a problem.  We also pre-planned what we are going to take with us if we only have a few minutes notice: our animals, the fire safe box with birth certificates, marriage license and recently backed-up computer hard disks; wedding and baby albums, and a little HO train that my late father gave me.  With one credit card and a stop at Wal-Mart, we can buy food and clothes to last us through any ordeal.  One more stop at the feed store and we're set.  Another thing to consider is to pre-arrange a place to bring you animals in case you have to evacuate.  This is something that we had not done.  There were some frantic moments and curt conversations on the cell phone on the way into town.  Remember, it doesn't do any good to have an agreement with your next door neighbor if the whole county is on fire.
	This story has a happy ending.  Cathy and I are safe.  Our horses got to run around in a large pasture with some of their old friends for a couple of days while the smoke cleared.  Our house is still standing, although the landscape is now more of a moonscape.  Now is the time to prepare.  Sooner or later accidents happen.  Don't wait until it is too late.


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