Food for Thought has some fire information sources for you:
We’ve posted this Cal Fire web site in our announcement box. Because it’s a California-wide site, it’s a bit circuitous to navigate. But it’s a good start.
Also, we offer this Google Earth Map with dots that represent area fires. (This requires high-speed Internet access and a download of Google Earth.) Once on Google Earth, you can type in your address and see fire locations in your area.
One more site that has helpful fire information is yubanet.com
If you have additional fire-information sources, feel free to post those in the comments section below. Or e-mail them to us at attndoni@gmail.com.
As important as data resources, we have each other. We have the human ability to tell what we’ve observed and/or heard regarding the fires.
In real time.
I invite you to post your fire updates, alerts and even questions in Food for Thought’s comment section below.
I also invite you to post tips or suggestions regarding packing and safety for those who might be in harm’s way.
In short, if you have anything to add that’s remotely related to the surrounding fires that you believe can do some good and/or help keep people safe, please, share.
Note: With this invitation comes a plea: Only provide information you know to be accurate, first-hand accounts. Unsubstantiated rumors can cause more harm and angst than assistance and comfort. Please include as many specific details as possible. (Who, what, where, why, when and how are always good basic guidelines.)
Meanwhile, at our place, smoke chokes, cloaks and tightly envelopes our property.
I step outside and strain my eyes to see familiar hillsides, oaks and mazanitas. They’re gone. For three days now they’ve remained invisable behind a ghostly, smoke-screened white-out.
It’s as if our home, and everything except our most foreshortened groundscape, is an island. Beyond that, the rest of world has slipped into a milky, charred-stenched abyss.
It stings to breathe. We open and close doors quickly to prevent yet more smoke from entering the house than what’s already seeped inside.
Although we can’t actually see the heavy planes that rumble overhead, we can hear them. We have no idea where they’re going.
Kind people call and e-mail us. Are we OK? Do we need a place to stay, or a place to stash important belongings? We’re so fortunate for such concern, but we’re fine. Thank you for asking.
The last we heard the Igo fire in the Zogg Mine area is considered contained. That’s more than five miles north-west of our place. Also, at last check, the Platina fire has grown to more than 2,000 acres, but that’s about 30 miles west of us.
We feel such gratitude for our current state of safety.
Now I worry most about the scores of north state people, homes and thousands of acres in and around the current fire locations: Whiskeytown, Democrat, Pine Fire, Venture, Donkey Mine Road, Bullskin Ridge, Kirkman, Shingletown, Platina and Igo/Ono Zogg Mine Road.
I feel compassion and hope for those people and their homes. I feel concern and pride for the maxed-out firefighter warriors and chiefs.
May they all be safe and sound.
