Welcome to my blog!

I just got in a half hour or so ago. The house and everything else is fine. There is a light coating of ash on everything outside, but not inside. As far as I can tell the fire didn’t come to this side of town. On the way in I could see no fire damage at all. If it wasn’t for a persistent  smoky smell in the air and the ash, you wouldn’t even know there was a fire.

I’m sure the other side of Fallbrook was not so lucky. I’ll drive around later and see what’s what, but I know there were more than a few homes lost. I wish all of them my best.

My plan for the rest of the day is to unpack, get something to eat, keep an eye on the news – just in case – rest, and drink beer.

When I went to dinner tonight I checked my home phone one more time. It picked up and it had the correct time. It seems that my phone line went out, not my phone. In any event it is back.

When I got done with dinner I went online and found that the evacuation order for Fallbrook was mostly lifted. The area specified is a little unclear, but I think it includes me. I will call in the morning to find out.

I am currently in Malibu, so I will not be going home tonight. First thing in the morning though. I’ll post again when I get settled.

The fires around Fallbrook seem to be either out or contained. They are letting some people go home in the Olive Hill Area. They say that they will open the downtown area some time with in the next 24 hours. I’m losing my patience and so are a lot of people.

The downtown area was not damaged by any fire. It still has power. Several stores are open. One of the gas stations had a tanker truck make a delivery yesterday. If it’s safe enough to bring a truck full of gasoline into the area, it should be safe enough to let us go home!

Arrrggghhhh!!

Earlier this evening things seemed to be looking better in Fallbrook. I was hearing that the winds had died down and the fires seemed to be under control. My answering machine was working until about 8pm or so and I had relaxed a bit. I called again around 10:30/11 pm and the machine didn’t pick up. It still won’t pick up now around 11:30 pm.

I’m not too concerned as I expect that the power has just gone out. I’m kind of surprised that it hasn’t gone out before this, but still… it was nice hearing that mechanical voice pick up the phone.

Another thing that is bugging me is that my news sources seem to have dried up. I was getting information from bloggers on the nctimes.com web site, but the one blog hasn’t updated since 8:20pm and the other hasn’t had anyone from inside the village from a while.

It’s probably nothing but…

I’m hearing that it might 2 days *at least* before they let us back in. There is supposed to be an update Thursday late morning/early afternoon, but who knows.

As of 8:25 am Wednesday my answering machine still picks up.

Things seem a bit better. The 5 South just re-opened. Fallbrook still seems to be there. More when I know it.

Update: 9:25 am. The machine still picks up. I’ve heard that some areas of Fallbrook are losing power, but this isn’t surprising. I’ve heard no info about flare ups in the area.

Update: 10:55 am. The machine is still picking up.

Update: 11:35 am. I still get an answer from my machine.

Update: 2:15 pm. The phone still works. I’m hearing we might be let back in somewhere between later today and all the way to Friday.

I just heard that the winds have changed and the Pendleton fires, which were supposedly contained, have turned back towards Fallbrook. If this is true it is not good at all.

My answering machine still picks up as of 10:34 pm.

Update: 11:52 pm answering machine is still working.

Any one reading this? Feel free to reply. I’ve changed the settings for now so that you don’t have to register.

Update: 12:24 am Wednesday morning. The machine is still working.

Update: 12:56 am. My answering machine is still answering. There are people still in Fallbrook at the Albertson’s parking lot which is a mile or so from my house. They say they see a glow and heard an explosion on the NE side of town which is away from my house.

I’m running on fumes, but I can’t sleep. I’ll update until I finally go to bed.

Update: 1:30 am. The machine is still answering. Surrounding areas such as Bonsall, San Luis Rey Heights and Winterwarm on the north side of state Route 76 are being told to evacuate. They are being told to head W on 76. The problem with that is according to the chip site: DUE TO FIRE, NB 5 AT LAS PULGAS AND SB 5 AND BASILONE SHUT DWN. They will need to head south on some side roads.

Update: 1:49 am. The 5 shutdown is due to smoke from a back burn according to http://www.cpp.usmc.mil/ They say that there is no danger to the 5.

Update: 1:59 am. My answering machine is still picking up. The guy in Albertson’s parking lot says that it is quiet in the area and doesn’t mention anything new. I think I’m going to bed.

Update: 2:30 am. Haven’t made it to bed yet, but I’m going now. My machine is still working so I still have a home. The albertsons guy posted and said that all was quiet in my direction. We’ll see what the morning brings in three or four hours.

Update: 3 am. Answering machine still works. Going to bed. No. Really.

This is the latest info from various sources.

The Rice fire in Fallbrook has grown to 7,500 acres and is 10 percent contained. Firefighters expect full containment on Oct. 28 and full control of the blaze by Nov. 5.

San Diego County faced the most dire situation as flames raced unchecked, with 500,000 people now ordered to evacuate their homes, county supervisor Ron Roberts said. At least 1,250 homes were destroyed.

Doesn’t look great.

As of 9:25 pm my answering machine still picks up so I still have a house!

I did hear that the winds have been better today and should be even better tomorrow. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get back into the house on Thursday, but we will see.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been on vacation for the last two weeks and before that I was overwhelmed at work. I wish I had better things to post about.

For anyone that doesn’t know, much of San Diego and surrounding areas are on fire. This is worse than the fire from four years ago. If you remember that one then you have some idea just how bad it is.

I live in Fallbrook, an area in northern San Diego county. When I went to bed on Sunday night the fires had already started, but they were a good distance from me. By the time I got up around 9am Monday (the last day of my vacation) that had changed.

Turning on the news I saw that there were now 8 fires that were blanketing the entire area. One of them, the Rice Fire, was close enough to make me worry. I spent the next four hours running around trying to find information on the fire and getting ready to evacuate.

It’s been a long day, but as far as I can remember sometime around 1pm half of Fallbrook was ordered to evacuate. This wasn’t my half, but it was only a couple of miles away. I finished packing and managed to convince my roommate that this was serious and he needed to get ready.

We left sometime around 1:30pm?, about a half hour or so after the partial evacuation.  Apparently we left at a good time.

The road out of Fallbrook is a narrow two lane that winds around and ends up at 76. We ran into a little traffic, but not too much that was out of the ordinary. We got on the 76 and headed to the 5. We stopped briefly to get gas and overpaid for it.

The 5 North was good for a few miles, then it went to a crawl. It took over two hours to get to Irvine, a drive that normally takes an hour at worst.

Harvey, my roommate, has relatives in Irvine and we were heading there. As we got closer I started to worry as there was a lot of smoke. Fortunately we rode out of it and their place seems to be safe. Once we got there, we found out that we left at the right time.

Shortly after we left the partial evacuation of Fallbrook was elevated to a total evacuation. The 76 became a parking lot. They opened the road that goes through Pendleton (a military base) to help people evacuate and that was a parking lot as well. I’m glad we didn’t wait any longer.

As of right now my answering machine still picks up (12:50am) so my house seems to be standing. I’ve also heard that the santa anna winds that are driving these fires have died down a bit, at least from reports from people that are still in the fallbrook area. They are predicted to pick up again in the morning though and they are saying that they’ll be blowing until Thursday.

We’re not out of this yet.

I’ll try to update this as I can.