On the afternoon of August 27, I heard on the radio news about a brush fire that was burning in the Angeles National Forest. I wasn't overly concerned about it because of the distance it was from our place. It was somewhere around 15-20 miles from us.
I fell asleep that night on the couch but woke up around 3:00 am with the air in the room reeking of smoke. The experience was similar to having your head stuck in the fireplace after the fire was put out....s t i n k y!! It seems our house has a few more leaks than I thought and I discovered that the worst places were the front door and the fireplace.
After figuring out where the main source of leakage was, I got the bright idea, at 3:15 am to stuff the frame around the front door (which we had taken the molding off of to replace the whole door....oh sooooo many months ago) with rags as I had no tape to seal it off at the time. (What a pretty picture this made!) And then I closed the doors to the back of the house and tried to get some sleep.
I managed to get myself up and moving around 9:00 and found that my husband had turned the hepa filter and ozone filter on high to try to get the smell out before leaving for work. This so so worked and I thought that I would open the doors to try to air the place out since it looked like a nice day with the blue skies and all.
NOPE...the air outside was as bad as inside, despite the blue sky. The thing that one couldn't tell by looking out the window was that the temperature was already over 90 degrees at 10 o'clock in the morning. No air was moving (actually thank God), zippo humidity... and hot, hot, hot!
I knew that I had to adventure out to the hardward store to get some tape to seal the leaky areas. So I found a bandana that I soaked in water, wrapped it around my nose and mouth and adventured out. I did lower it from my face when I got to the store so that I wouldn't be mistaken for someone with ill intent.
After figuring out where the main source of leakage was, I got the bright idea, at 3:15 am to stuff the frame around the front door (which we had taken the molding off of to replace the whole door....oh sooooo many months ago) with rags as I had no tape to seal it off at the time. (What a pretty picture this made!) And then I closed the doors to the back of the house and tried to get some sleep.I managed to get myself up and moving around 9:00 and found that my husband had turned the hepa filter and ozone filter on high to try to get the smell out before leaving for work. This so so worked and I thought that I would open the doors to try to air the place out since it looked like a nice day with the blue skies and all.
NOPE...the air outside was as bad as inside, despite the blue sky. The thing that one couldn't tell by looking out the window was that the temperature was already over 90 degrees at 10 o'clock in the morning. No air was moving (actually thank God), zippo humidity... and hot, hot, hot!
I knew that I had to adventure out to the hardward store to get some tape to seal the leaky areas. So I found a bandana that I soaked in water, wrapped it around my nose and mouth and adventured out. I did lower it from my face when I got to the store so that I wouldn't be mistaken for someone with ill intent.
I took my camera with me and here are a few of the pics I got of the sky above and around our house:
This last picture has an airplane in the center of it which helps put a size perspective on these pictures.
So, continuing on to the weekend, it all continued to move westward towards our house. The fire was double and tripling in size each day. The winds continued to blow the smoke in our direction at night. The tempature remained HOT and dry. I took this picture in the middle of the day so that I could document what our thermostat (which was in the shade) was showing. Outside temp at 3:10 pm was 103 degrees in the shade with a 19 % humidity. Ugh!!! These temps required us to have our air conditioning running almost all the time. Nights would cool off to the 80's. This particular week was like living in the deserts.
My husband was way more daring than I, plus he doesn't have the same breathing problems that I do, and he adventured out several nights to get a few of the night shots of what it looked like from our point of view. Here are some of those shots:
This is just a small collection of the photos taken on this Sunday night. My husband reeked of smoke when he came back to the house and I made him take his clothes off and leave them outside. He truly smelled like he had rolled around in the fireplace.
On Monday the fires had moved within a mile of our house. Evacuations were taking place just down the street. We did not ever receive the mandatory evac but when you looked out onto our street you could see that a very large percentage of the neighborhood had left. For us we really had nowhere to go. My daughter who lives not far was also in the line of fire, so that left her out and my mother-in-laws house, which was about 12 miles away, but was out of the question because I am ghastly allergic to cats and she has 5. I had thought about taking a trip up the coast earlier in the week, but as it got closer to the house, the anxiety set in and there was no going anywhere.
So, as the reports showed the fire getting closer at a quick pace, I called my husband to come home from work. He, again went out to take some pictures of the fire that was on the hill just behind our house (about a quarter of a mile away).
To say that we are thankful that this moved away from our house is an understatement. This was not a pleasant experience and for now it's past but left many reminders of what was.
Today is September 8th, 13 days after this ordeal started and the first day that we really have been able to have the doors open. There are lots of things to clean up that still smell of smoke and cars that still need to be empty. We are alive and as safe as can be at the moment.
In closing I just wanted to pass along a few shots that we got of the sun setting in the west the last few days as the fire moved in that direction and filled the skies with dust.
So, continuing on to the weekend, it all continued to move westward towards our house. The fire was double and tripling in size each day. The winds continued to blow the smoke in our direction at night. The tempature remained HOT and dry. I took this picture in the middle of the day so that I could document what our thermostat (which was in the shade) was showing. Outside temp at 3:10 pm was 103 degrees in the shade with a 19 % humidity. Ugh!!! These temps required us to have our air conditioning running almost all the time. Nights would cool off to the 80's. This particular week was like living in the deserts.
My husband was way more daring than I, plus he doesn't have the same breathing problems that I do, and he adventured out several nights to get a few of the night shots of what it looked like from our point of view. Here are some of those shots:
This is just a small collection of the photos taken on this Sunday night. My husband reeked of smoke when he came back to the house and I made him take his clothes off and leave them outside. He truly smelled like he had rolled around in the fireplace.
On Monday the fires had moved within a mile of our house. Evacuations were taking place just down the street. We did not ever receive the mandatory evac but when you looked out onto our street you could see that a very large percentage of the neighborhood had left. For us we really had nowhere to go. My daughter who lives not far was also in the line of fire, so that left her out and my mother-in-laws house, which was about 12 miles away, but was out of the question because I am ghastly allergic to cats and she has 5. I had thought about taking a trip up the coast earlier in the week, but as it got closer to the house, the anxiety set in and there was no going anywhere.
So, as the reports showed the fire getting closer at a quick pace, I called my husband to come home from work. He, again went out to take some pictures of the fire that was on the hill just behind our house (about a quarter of a mile away).
To say that we are thankful that this moved away from our house is an understatement. This was not a pleasant experience and for now it's past but left many reminders of what was.
Today is September 8th, 13 days after this ordeal started and the first day that we really have been able to have the doors open. There are lots of things to clean up that still smell of smoke and cars that still need to be empty. We are alive and as safe as can be at the moment.
In closing I just wanted to pass along a few shots that we got of the sun setting in the west the last few days as the fire moved in that direction and filled the skies with dust.
2 comments:
Amazing shots you both took. Just happy you are both okay and the fire seems to have gotten under some control!
HOLY SMOKES! Or should I say Holy Smoking Skies Batman! You should be a reporter! This is a fabulous write up but I feel so bad for you!
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