Mountain Bob (fire news)

I DROVE UP El Toro Road toward Cook's Corner today, hoping to get to my place near Trabuco Canyon (Live Oak Canyon), which I evacuated two days ago, owing to the fire.

As expected, a cop was there to keep everyone out.

"Well, I live here," I explained. I showed the cop my (expired) Drivers License.

"No exceptions."

As he said that, a KNX News Radio truck drove down from the canyon. The cop waved at its occupants as though he knew them.

I gestured at the truck.

"Except for the news media," said the cop.

So I parked behind Cook's and started walking up Harris Grade. I figured the cop was too busy to notice me. He was.

It was hot, and I wasn't really dressed for a midday hike, but it's only a mile to the top of the grade and it isn't much further from there to Lambrose Canyon.

About a third of the way up, the burned area on the Modjeska side (left) became visible. It was pretty ugly.

Took some pics. Check 'em out. [Click on the pics to enlarge them.]


When I got to the top, I could see what had happened to Hamilton Trail, which is on the left (the peak) side of Live Oak Canyon Road. It contains a few dozen homes.

It looked pretty bad. No homes were burned, but everything around them was black and still smoking.

I ran into a guy in a truck who lived there. Some people decided to defy the mandatory evacuation. They drive around from Cook's Corner down to O'Neill Park, but they can't drive through the cop blockades—that is, they can't leave—'cause if they do, they aren't let back in.

This guy explained that, at one point, the fire was "360 degrees" around his house. He gestured a circle around himself and made a horrified face.

But the firefighters saved it, he said.

"That's great," I said.

I've been through fires before, and so I wasn't surprised by the devastation, the ugliness, the silence.

As it turns out, my side of Live Oak Canyon Rd. was entirely unscathed, near as I could tell. Below Hamilton Trail, most of the peak side had been saved too.

I walked through the oak trees to Lambrose Canyon and spotted "Mountain" Bob at the entrance of our little colony. He commenced telling me stories. "The flames," he said, were "200 feet high." "I'd never seen anything like it."

"I got religion," he said.

Bob is pretty ironic. So I don't think he was serious.

Later, he asked me, "Do you believe in God, Chunk?"

"Nope."

"O.K. Ever heard of Herbert Spencer?"

He went on like that. Bob's a character, he is.


When I got to the Wheeler Compound, everything was exactly as we had left it on Tuesday.

The doors at my parents' place were unlocked. I walked in, checked things out. I had a beer. Then I locked the doors and left.

I headed up to my place. It was utterly quiet. I made a couple of phone calls, checked out a leaking water tank.

I noticed lots of billowing smoke coming from behind and to the left of Modjeska Peak. (See pic above.) That didn't look good.


Then I headed back down.

On my way out, I talked with Bob again. He offered to drive me back to Cook's Corner—or just short of it anyway.

"Great," I said.

"We'll take my Prius! It's up there!" He motioned to a high point next to his house. I walked up there as he parked his truck on the other side of his house.

No Prius.

"There's no Prius up here, Bob," I shouted.

He looked concerned. He climbed up to where I was. "Where's my Prius?," he said. He thought a moment. Then he cursed.

"We'll take my diesel!" shouted Bob.

"Sounds good," I said.

"But it's got no fuel, so we might not make it."

That's Bob for you. Off we went.

When I drove away from Cook's, I could see Bob arguing with two cops at the blockade.

Love that Bob.

Mid-Afternoon Update: 4:00 pm Thursday

TWO OF THE WONDERS of our canyon community are our schools: the Silverado Elementary School and the Silverado Children's Center. These two institutions are adjacent each other on Santiago Canyon Road, midway between Jackson Ranch and Silverado Canyon and nurture the minds and hearts of the canyon children who attend.

Rumors spread earlier today that the children's center had burned and I wondered how I'd break that sad news to my son. He's been a student there for three years now, under the inspired guidance of teachers Aimee B., Sara H., sweet Jenny, and canyon legend Chay P. The center is not-for-profit and a project of the Silverado-Modjeska Parks and Recreation Department. Its serves the needs of families in the canyon and beyond, offering quality affordable preschool and after-school care. Our son has forged friendships there not only with his peers but with the farm animals, Tiny the pig and Jazzy the goat. He has only recently and proudly matriculated to the the famous "school-agers'" classroom. Just last month, my little guy started kindergarten with 17 other children at Silverado Elementary School. The elementary school, part of the Orange Unified School District, has served generations of canyon kids. It's a small school; fewer than 100 children are enrolled in grades K-6.

Then word arrived this afternoon that confirmed the both the school and the center had survived. The Children's Center director Aimee B. acknowledged that much work will need to be done before they can open. (There's a project for folks with time and perhaps money.) The two schools are standing and whole (minus a quonset hut) and that is very, very good news.

The same email declared that not one home had been lost in Silverado Canyon -- though it admitted that there was risk still from still blazing hot spots and unstable winds.

On a more personal note, the visit to the doctor proved helpful. Rebel Girl now has an inhaler to help with her breathing as well as other medication to take. She is supposed to rest her voice (in other words, SHUT UP) and take it easy. She'll do her best. She already feels better.

Thursday Morning: Air Support?

Sleepless night. Too much smoke and bad dreams. You can't sleep when you have to cough.

Journalist and UCI instructor, Celeste Fremon, at her weblog, Witness LA, has been chronicling the fire all week from her home base of Topanga. Do check her out at: WLA.

Today she offers a lesson in air support. You probably heard Supervisor Spitzer complain about a lack of air support -- and I agreed with him. (Note how silent he was yesterday on the topic when Arnold was in town and visiting down the road at El Toro High School.) Could OC have used earlier air support? I think it's a no-brainer, but Fremon points out that not all help comes from the outside. Each county maintains their own fire-fighting air fleet.

Fremon writes, "For the record, LA County's fleet consists of three Sikorsky Firehawks, four Bell 412 helicopters and another Bell Jet ranger. This fire season, in addition to the copters it had in its own hanger, LA County Fire Department had access to a couple Erickson Sky Cranes, a Super Scooper or two (leased from Quebec) and some other fixed-wing planes that swoop and drop fire retardant."

What do we have in OC? Fremon called the Orange County's fire authority and asked. The answer: "Angela, a very cheerful and sleep-deprived OCFA spokesperson told [Fremon], 'Two helicopters.' To make sure [she] hadn't heard wrong, [Fremon] asked again. Two, [the spokesperson] repeated, and they definitely aren't Firehawks. 'I wish,' she said."

Seems like Supervisior Spitzer--and all of us--need to think about why this is so.

Okay, enough for the morning report. I need to see a doctor today for this cough. Red has gone to the university. Our son's school remains closed. I miss my colleagues, my students, my friends, my family.