Our neighborhood in the news

So our neighborhood, Broadmoor has been in the news all evening, with our neighbors shown on their roofs hosing down their property to keep the fires at bay. Yes, we were never closer than several miles from fires in San Diego, and here we find the fires just up the street from us. Fires broke out over town this afternoon. I actually drove past them on the way home from work, but didn't think they were too close. By the time I came home, I could see smoke up the street, but just assumed the wind was blowing the smoke our way. Well I was outside pulling weeds and my neighbor yelled she was calling 911 because she thought their was a fire up the hill. I blew her off as overreacting. But minutes later a news crew drove by and then a firetruck. At that point, I turned on the news and called Brian. By the time Brian came home it seemed as if half the city drove through our quiet neighborhood. Yes, gotta love the nosy people who are more interested in checking out the fires, rather than staying out of the way of the firetrucks. Fortunately, the winds are blowing east and we are west of the fires. The mass of the fires are less than 200 feet from the houses at the top of our street. We could see billows of smoke every time a tree went up in flames. So the neighbors got on their roofs and started hosing down the area. And thankfully there are several firetrucks up the hill waiting to fight the fires. We are watching the firefighters on the news hosing down the brush fires in their backyards.

Ok, I just typed the above part 8:30 pm and then police knocked on our door to tell us we were under mandatory evacuation. So Brian and I went around the house packing up anything of value and getting ourselves ready to go. I was a bit skeptical, so I called our neighbors and they said they were going to wait it out a bit, so I told Brian that we could start packing, but I wasn't waking the kids and heading out until a house actually caught on fire. So now it is 10:30 pm and they are showing that the fire is still climbing up the hill and will reach the street, but shouldn't burn any houses because they have structural boundaries, whatever that is, I'm happy to hear it. So we seem to be safe and they said the firetrucks will be parked here all night to make sure the fire stays low and in the brush. This has been a good lesson in what we need to do in the future to better prepare for emergencies. And let me tell you some of our huge pine trees will be cut down in the near future. And thank you to all of our friends who called concerned and offered their houses to us if we evacuated. We are lucky to have such wonderful friends here.

Here are pictures Brian took off the news, since we didn't want to add to the chaos at the top of the street by going up and taking our own pictures.