They're Home

My family has returned home; others either have no home or live in an area that is still not safe. No, the fire is NOT out. It appears that someone clearing brush higher up the canyon may be responsible for starting the fire: doing the right thing sometimes is the wrong thing to do.

The one-block street my family home occupies was hit and miss: some homes are completely destroyed, while others received some damage and many homes were not damaged at all. The street above the house (remember, it's on a hill) saw several homes completely destroyed and many damaged on the side of the hill that forms one side of the Palomino Estates area in the next Canyon over, heading west toward San Roque Canyon. The fire started in the mountains behind my family home, then came down into the canyons where the residents live, then back up into the hills, then back down into the neighborhoods. It was a wind-driven fire held in place by a high pressure weather condition.

Think of an accordian fan, with my home on the outward fold and Palomino Canyon the inward fold. Once the fire got into the inward folds, it stayed there, moving up and down the inward folds until the winds had enough force to toss embers across the outward folds toward new fuel. When a fire stays around long enough, it has time to do a lot of damage, no matter how large a defensible area there is around a home.

Mother Nature ended the immediate danger, not the firefighters. All mankind can do is try to save lives and structures: the fire depends on available fuel and weather conditions. This is the third major fire in about 3 years, so the available fuel is diminished, but the lack of water along the coastal desert plane, combined with the high pressure weather feature and the incredibly high winds, assures that this will not be the last fire in the area.

And it's still burning.