Thursday, July 17, 2008

Morning report.....

KION reported that there is a involuntary voluntary evacuation in place. That kind of sums things up.

Here is the morning satellite pass. YIPES! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

No, all those red dots are the backburn activity. It was scarily impressive last night....this morning the skies are pretty much clear from Johnny Kinder's place at the top of Laurel Springs.

The report from the fire guys is that the backburns went perfectly: "a classic backburn". The CalFire crew seems to have been in charge of that......amongst them the intimidatingly strac and organized female crews Toddie and I saw on Tuesday. All of Anastasia Canyon dozer lines were taken care of......with Structure Protection engines in place at every house on Lambert Flats.....and lots of spares on Tassajara Road. Piney Creek was also burned.....which I believe accounts for the hotspots across the Valley Road. The other burn ran down the far mesa by Mrs. Cahoon's gravesite. I am sure that......just like Grandpa Fred Nason.....she is non-plussed by all the excitement.

The Laurel Springs Kahoutek will be back in action later today. First, I have to work for a living.......spending 8 hours delivering supplies is tough to explain to all my workers who need checks!

And, finally.....the backburns were so successful that there will be no fire-related reasons for a continued blockade after Saturday. Whether or not the Sheriff deigns to let people return to their jobs, animals, houses, love lives, etc is another question. As before, the CHP and the fire folk are somewhat baffled and ashamed at being on the pointy end of a silly policy being promoted by an agency whose chief has to my knowledge not set foot at the scene.

And....speaking of crime: one of my informants at The Preserve saw a whole bunch of helicopter action at the far end of the Preserve. The fire activity flushed out a pot plantation that ran to some 32,000 plants.....some serious work and organization. And risk. 20 guys....full time? That is some organized crime.


4 Comments:

Blogger kathy said...

Actually, I think they knew about THAT pot field a while back. The location is in steep terrain was first discovered during a helicopter flight in February when the growers started setting up a camp. They were waiting to catch criminals.....

I have to concur about those firefighting CalFire gals. But then you know I would.

1:20 PM  
Blogger pendoodles said...

We read about it in the Herald. Seems they didn't catch anyone. Guess the criminals were smart enough to heed the 'mandatory evacuation'. LOL

4:13 AM  
Blogger cvtree said...

Fantastic news the road is open. Next time we are under house arrest I want the bracelet. Thank you for all you did!! Still want to deliver pizza? Just messing with you, peace and have a great day. Shey.

10:03 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Mike,

You won't want to miss Firefighter Blog's very interesting take on what might being going on behind-the-scenes with some PR/Management changes for the Basin Complex Fire.

It's under "update 2000 hours" here:

http://www.firefighterblog.blogspot.com/

10:14 AM  

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