Glad you are OK Doc.. Hope you all get plenty of rain{but not too much} to wash away the ash.What a frieking hassle but still alive is good..
Greetings from Fire-Ravaged Southern California;
I'm terribly depressed. The last several days have not seen much in the way of fun for the Doc... first the surprise deluge a few Fridays ago.... that one waterlogged my trike so bad, it will require complete rewiring of the electronics... and insurance doesn't cover "damage due to raindrops".
But just when I was really feeling sorry for myself a few days later, the fires broke out. Now I personally do not live within the fire danger areas, but I do live close enough that a layer of ash manifested itself in the area, and cars parked on the street for longer than 24 hours had as much as an inch of ash layers on them. Then I got the call that a good friend of mine who lives in Wrightwood was at work when they called for evacuation, and the roads were sealed, cutting him off from his home and his animals. That was pretty bad.
Then the call that other friends were evacuating their home in the Malibu hills, more than 100 miles from my friend in Wrightwood. They lost everything they didn't take with them. that's when my own troubles once again put themselves into perspective. I remembered how I felt when I lost my home to fire in 1987. And how grateful I was to have survived.
Best,
Doctor G
Riffing off the earlier thread, we have fires in Southern California. Whenever you have a combination of dense underbrush and dry hot windy weather, conditions that are commonplace here, you're going to get fires.
Fires in So Cal are not caused by global warming. That's stupid. And a political red herring. Fires are caused by nature, and man's thoughtlessness and carelessness. The firestorms of 2007 were caused by the following combination:
1 - The super rains of two years ago brought explosive new growth to the underbrush. Growth that became perfect tinder after the subsequent dearth of rainfall. Then we had that brief deluge that fucked up my trike, and gave birth to new spurts of undergrowth... the perfect combination of dry and brittle, with young and combustible, for spreading fires.
2 - Drought conditions as bad as any in recent memory dried out all that growth....
3 - Wind conditions were completely out of control. Gusts over 80 mph were reported. tough to stand and fight a fire when the wind is pushing the fire right at you.
4 - Overdevelopment - Residential neighborhoods encroaching on nature will always be more susceptible to the caprice of nature, be it fire, flood, or coyote-in-the-trash-can.
5 - Arson - yes friends, this latest firestorm was caused by a kid playing with matches.
Now I am going to go visit a friend who was in a terrible accident. Another life lesson in putting things into perspective.
Thanks for reading.
thanks for the update Doc.
be well
BK
that doesn't lessen the impact that the damage to your trike had on you. Everything is relative to one's own circumstances, and having your trike severely damaged by rain is still a devastating event in your life. If you had been running from the fire and your trike had been damaged, but not the house, then you could have said the damage to the trike was no big deal considering.
When a child's favorite toy breaks and he is devastated, his pain is very real and legitimate from his perspective within his reality. You were in not danger from the fire, so within your reality and your perspective, the damage to your trike is legitimately a big deal.
I was wondering why you haven't posted here in several days.
Its great that your supporting your friend through this tragedy and this forum wishes you the best.
this fire seems massive. good to hear you doing okay.
welcome to the forum.
Glad you are OK Doc.. Hope you all get plenty of rain{but not too much} to wash away the ash.What a frieking hassle but still alive is good..