That Was Too Close For Comfort - Fire Pics From No. End Of SADM

There are many displaced people from the horrible fires here, we were lucky and escaped harm.  The minute I find out where to go to help these folks out - with anything - I'll post it. By now you have already seen scores of pictures, here are just a few more from our neighborhood:

~~~~

 ~ Thursday the 24th around 3:00 am awakened by thick smoke and a cramp in my leg.  I got up and opened the front door to see the hill directly behind us on fire, flames leaping to the sky.  I screamed to Mike to get up, there is a fire right behind us. Panic, Paris barking, Daca Bob crying, running in circles grabbing important papers, medicines, vitamins, cat food, unlocking the vehicles.  Luckily the electricity was on so we could open the garage door - but no internet.  At about 3:20am we walked  through the smoke and hot dry winds down to the barranca and it was obvious the TIJ Fire Department had the hill under control, still the smoke was choking.  William next door came out and said "what's happening?"  We had no idea that Real Del Mar had been evacuated or the extent of damage, chaos and terror Tijuana, Rosarito , Ensenada and Tecate were experiencing. I went back to bed with Paris. Mike took this picture which is from the street, you can still see the fire burning the hills further north in Real Del Mar:

Around 4:00am

 ~ Shortly before dawn Mike woke me and said, "Get up, the fire has moved to the barranca, we are moving hoses and buckets, get up. "  Everyone was busy attaching hoses or bringing buckets, so no one was really thinking about taking pictures, but flames were coming up from the barranca, which is about two blocks away from us.  Here is one pic to give you an idea of the thick smoke, and this pic really doesn't show how thick the smoke had been:

Another...the hill directly in the back ground had completely burned, that was the one I saw out the front door:. 

I can't name all the folks who came out to help, but they were great and I wish this brigade could all get together and go out to dinner some where nice.  There were five hoses attached from five houses running for about four hours straight: the street below Reuban's (this was Pete & Phyllis), Reuban & Carmen's, ours and our two new neighbors who are sweethearts.  A darling girl was passing out face masks, William did a double take as if he had been  struck by lightening and I told him to get her phone number, one man  ran over from the Highway & alerted us that many homes had been lost pointing east.

 ~ Dawn and everyone is still at it, hoses still running; in the second pic you can clearly see the plume from Punta Bandera in the ocean:

 ~ So they are saying we are going to be hit from both offshore and onshore winds on Sunday, unknown how strong they will be.  WIFI is back up, but unsure about Telnor, we saw them working on the poles this morning.

Take care everyone ! 



~~~~~