Wildfire on the 15
Right now I am sitting on my renewed deck enjoying a sunny and clear, but coolish Sunday morning. To the Northwest I look between the canyons and can see a sliver of the Rt. 15 and Old Rt. 395. Across the 15 is a ridge line of hills just a few hundred feet lower than our hill. The ridge line is called the Merrimacport Mountains, which seems a bit more grand than the barren hill deserves. That hill height allows us to see a wise swath of Pacific Ocean both in between the various saddles in its skyline and to the south across the sloping plain towards Carlsbad and Oceanside. It’s a lovely vista that combines ocean views and California high chaparral, strewn with large boulders. Right now as I look at that hill past the 15, I am looking at an 800-foot arc of pink coloring that bows up from the far side of the highway up half the hillside as though someone were marking a future monster tunnel for construction. In the middle of that pink arch is about a six acre area in 200-foot wide slash diagonally across the hillside that looks decidedly grey from having burned in a wildfire for several hours yesterday.
Now let’s be clear, in the contexts of California wildfires, this is a peanut. It is such a small fire (probably no more than 6 acres or so with the pink outline probably defining about 15-20 acres) that it does not even appear on the Cal Fire Map for the state. That map shows more than fifty fires, some of which are just red dots on the map. The fire on Merriam Mountain has been labeled on Cal Fire’s Twitter feed as the Deer Fire, presumably in reference to its nearest non-highway road, which is Deer Springs Road. There is actually a Cal Fire station right at the intersection of Highway 15 and Deer Springs Road, which is about a quarter mile from the scene of the fire. But this fire scene is smack dab in the center of our Western-facing view. We have the premier front row center seat to watch this fire from our one-mile-away (technically, Google Earth tells me we are 1.18 miles away from the hotspot).
Yesterday we were busy preparing for the arrival of Kim’s family for her brother Jeff’s 68th birthday. Her family used the occasion to gather for the first time as a whole since COVID hit. Her sister Sharon and hubby Woo came in from Camarillo. Nephew Josh and wife Haj plus kids JJ and Leila came south from Pasadena. Nephew Will and fiancé Ashley came up from Ocean Beach. ANd Brother Jeff and wife Lisa came up from the south side of Escondido. They were all coming in for a late lunch. Kim was out at the store and I was over at the Champaign RV Park just north of us by six miles covering with a tarp the parked A.F.M.C. Motorcycle trailer in its new home spot. As I drove down Old 395 Kim called to say she had seen an active fire on the far hillside of 15 and she was worried about Betty, who she left back at the house. I then noticed the thick plume of smoke starting to fill the otherwise clear cool sky. As I drove south on 395 and got closer, I could see the roaring flames on the hillside across the 15 and say the growing array of fire and emergency response crews on the 15, blocking southbound traffic.
When I got to the house I went immediately out to the deck to reconnoiter the scene. Betty was oblivious and stretching from the first of her several mid-morning naps, hoping for a treat from me now that I was home. What I saw was a raging hillside fire and about three helicopters hovering nearby and perhaps three Cal Fire planes in the air circling the scene. The northbound lane of the 15 was still moving, implying to me that Cal Fire was not too worried about the fire shifting wind and jumping over to our side of the highway. I called Kim to report on the overall status. Meanwhile I asked where the family members were in their travel towards us. Rt.15 is not just the major way north/south, but given the topography of the area, the alternative north/south roads are either ten miles West or ten miles East. In other words, if the 15 goes down there is all hell to pay for everyone in the area’s travel plans. There are no easy work-arounds. This always seems to be the case in the rugged state, where getting away from natural disasters is very much a real thing that must be contemplated and for which one must be prepared.
Last Christmas, we gave all family members an emergency Go-Pack that is a backpack or fanny pack that has several days worth of essentials to maintain life in an emergency evacuation situation. The idea is to not have to think to gather emergency provisions, but rather just go and make due later. We keep one such pack in the house and another in the garage for fast grab & go use. We used to keep the garage one in the car (which is what is recommended), but it tends to take up too much space. Nephew Josh has told me he has done the same and did not have his emergency pack in the car yesterday when he came down. Important note to consider going forward.
It took about two hours for Cal Fire to contain the Deer Fire and I watched every minute of it from the comfort of my deck sofa. As family members (mostly coming up from the south) rolled in, they joined me on the deck for the show. We tried to give up-to-the-minute status reports to the drivers stuck in traffic to help their decision points, but they all pretty much called audibles based on their specific circumstances. As my nephew Josh said, the situation was one of just picking your transportation poison.
The planes and helicopters were dropping two types of fire retardant on the fire. They dropped pink Phos-Chek, which is made up of ammonium polyphosphate, diammonium phosphate, diammonium sulfate, monoammonium phosphate, attapulgus clay, guar gum and water. It is a pink, long-term retardant that is used to outline the perimeter defense of the fire for containment. Meanwhile, the helicopters were dropping white foam short-term retardant on the fire to put it out. This took two Cal Fire Grumman S-2 fire planes and one push-pull Cessna O-2 command plane, plus perhaps three Bell UH-1F helicopters. By my estimates this represented about 15% of the Cal Fire aviation fleet to cover a fire that barely qualifies for a mention on the Cal Fire website. This is a big state with lots of wildfire threat. Perhaps the more affluently-populated areas like this are deemed more important to get on immediately from a public safety standpoint as compared to the more remote and unpopulated parts of the state.
Any way you look at it though, my little wildfire on the 15 has reminded me that we should keep our Go-Bags in our cars no matter how inconvenient it may be. It has also reminded me that wildfires in this state are a big deal and we should thank Cal Fire for its service each and every day as they protect us so effectively from this state’s most common natural disaster.