Witch Creek fire

Back in 2003 when we lived in Santee we were spared.  Spared from the fire and the evacuations.  Spared from danger and the inconvenience of temporarily relocating.  Not everybody in my family was as fortunate.  My Dad had fire come within 30 or so feet of his home — all the way down to his fence.  He was lucky to have it stop there.  Others weren’t.  Four years later these events would be closely repeated.

When Jenny and I bought our home we knew the recent history of the area.  We knew exactly how bad the neighborhoods were damaged by the fires just four short years before.  But that didn’t deter us one bit.  In fact, we were so convinced that the Cedar fire was such an anomaly that it wasn’t a factor when we signed the dotted line.  Just six months later we would be reminded how wrong we were.

As it turned out the Witch Fire would prove to be more troubling for even more family members.  Starting in the eastern side of Ramona on Sunday and fueled by the Santa Ana winds it quickly forced evacuations for my Dad and an Uncle.  Shortly after that my Mom received the call to evacuate.  Later that Monday we got that call, too.  We had plenty of time to get out and ended up staying at my Grandma’s house for the night before our area was declared safe to reenter on Tuesday afternoon.  Late Wednesday afternoon my Mom was allowed back home and we’re now anxiously awaiting the day they announce the fires have been 100% contained.  The fire officials maintain they currently do not have an estimated date for this but we hope it’s real soon.  A really cool map can be seen here.  As the fires are extinguished I would expect this map to be less informative as it is updated frequently with battle lines.

It’s times like these when you have nature really put into perspective for you exactly how little control you have over such devastating situations.  Although we’re not through this catastrophe yet, I’m happy to say that none of my family members have lost any property!  Let’s hope it stays this way!