Amazing video …
… shot by the son of Julie Wolf
Wolf, who has lived in California her whole life but has never before been evacuated, fled her home in Anderson Springs with her son, her daughter-in-law, and her daughter in a convoy of three cars. She is 60 years old and lived with her 24-year-old daughter in a home that her grandfather built in the 1930s.
She said her son shot the video on his phone as he drove the lead vehicle, a diesel van, through seven miles of woods consumed by fire. She believes her son shot the video “because it was such a bizarre sight”.
“I’m glad he did what he did because usually the shots of a forest fire or devastation are either from a helicopter or from very far away or after everything’s burnt,” Wolf said in an interview. “But seeing it from the inside, I think people might learn something. And I think that’s why people are looking at it.”
As of Thursday, the Valley fire has incinerated 73,700 acres and is 35% contained. Wolf said she didn’t know the fire was so close until her son pulled into her driveway to drop off a small, electric trailer. […]
She said they never received the order to evacuate. Wolf was expecting a phone call from the fire department, who she said had a “system in place to call everybody for evacuation situations”. She claims that her phone was working until the minute they left the house and she had no reason to doubt the system as she’s received reverse 911 calls in the past during emergencies.
Following her son’s arrival, they began packing her essentials and left the house at around 8.30pm.
I bet that was a loooong 7 ass puckering miles!
Just think, one flaming tree or power pole across the road and those people woulda been toast.
to be honest my firstest emotion is envy
me and mom woulda gotten a huge kick out of that
at least once we got through
Lee
Yes
the 2003 Old Fire in SoCal, which joined up with the Grand Prix and a few others, roared across 750,000 acres and 5 counties.
At one point, every one north of the 210 in the Rancho Cucamonga area was notified to evacuate … #4 daughter was at a friend’s house in this area and we (at the time lived just south of the 210 in RC) drove up Carnelian St to pick her up. You could look up the street right to the foothills and see this huge seething wall of flame at the top of the street.
It was surreal for days and the houses and streets were covered with enough ash to look as if it had snowed.
I went driving through Bastrop, TX two years after their Lost Pines fire on my way to Elgin for some smoked meat. I passed so many dead sick and dying trees on ashy fields with a tiny about of scrub coming back. Miles and miles of it. Looked like a post atomic war story come to life. When I got to Elgin I was kind of bummed out so I got my ribs and sausage to go.
This was a photo taken last year.
http://www.brothersbikeride.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Bastrop-State-Park.jpg