This story starts Thursday afternoon October 24, 2019. Some of what you read here today was written over the last few days, and I will put that in Italic and if you've read it before just skip that part and look at pictures.
First, here are three screen shots of the NASA Firms website tracking fires. I'll include a link at the end so you can go play around with it, it's very interesting.
Fires are red areas. On Wednesday Oct. 23, 2019 there were a few small brush fires, not forest fires because there aren't trees, just brush. Weather conditions were near perfect.
Thursday a rather large fire started in the Guadaloupe Valley, which is wine country here. And the Santa Ana winds started blowing. You can see how big the fire got in a short time.
Let's back up just a bit. On Wednesday a couple, in their rv, came into the rv park and parked two spaces up from me. Although our row is full of RV's we are the only people here, the other rv's are parked here all year and their owners come and go, they're not here all the time. Ok so, Neil and Victoria are two sites up from me and we have become friends, plus their dog, Zappa.
So by Thursday afternoon we could see smoke blowing over the mountains toward us. I thought it would be a good time to go fill the gas tank in the Honda, as there's a ARCO station about 1 mile north of the rv park, I also unhooked the RV and went and filled its gas tank as well. You might remember that the gas gage in the RV isn't working, better to be safe that sorry. When I got back to the RV park I filled my water tanks in the RV as well. I hadn't done that before because I didn't want to put Mexican water in my tanks but I'll go into that another time. So now I have gas and water and my solar system.
Thursday night when I went to bed the wind was blowing and smoke was coming over the mountain towards us but I wasn't so worried because the fire was about 10 miles away. At some point in the night I got up and looked out the window and saw our mountains, right here by us, glowing red from fire on their back side. The winds had pushed the fire through the canyons and up the hills. I went running outside, in t shirt and underwear, to get a better look. OMG it's coming over the mountain. I ran to my neighbors and banged on their door to wake them up, and ran back home to get dressed. By now the few of us in the rv park are standing by the office watching the fire and by now the electricity is out. The wind is blowing so hard we can hardly stand up. It was very scary. One of the rvers got in his rv and left, but Neil, Victoria and I weren't ready to run away. Then we noticed that there wasn't any traffic on the highway, the roads were closed.
I have to say here, that social media, ie Facebook, is how everyone in this area was keeping up with what was going on. Information was flying all around Facebook about road closures and areas burning. As you can see on the map it wasn't just our fire but Tijuana, Rosarito, Tecate and Ensenada all were dealing with fires, and I belong to all those groups.
Picture taken from internet.
Ok, now for copies of what I wrote on my Facebook page.
"It's 3:45am Friday morning and I'm fine, right now. When you get up in the morning you might see on the news that most of northern baja from south of Ensenada to the California border is burning. Santa Ana winds are really bad and Baja Seasons rvpark is surrounded by fire, too late to leave and no where to go. The little town of La Misión is gone I think as the fire is coming over the hill from there. The cats are in their carriers just in case, I've unhooked the rv from the hook ups and am turned around and am ready to leave if I need to. Tense times."
As it turns out only parts of the community of La Misión burned.
At 2pm Friday I posted this.
"Ok, here's an update, short and sweet because my eyes hurt from the blowing sand, dirt and smoke.
My neighbors, here in the rv park, and I sheltered in place. Around dawn today the winds, the Santa Ana's, picked up really bad and blew for about 6 hours. The winds blew the fire across the highway in several places but not right where we are. It's like we had a little bubble around us, lots of blowing sand and dirt but very little smoke compared to the areas north and south of us. About 3 miles south the fire burned several big homes on a big golf course, and 3 miles north it jumped the road and burned some things up there that are still burning so I don't know about that area. About an hour ago, 12:30pm Friday, the wind stopped blowing. It is so quiet and calm, what a relief. So now the fires aren't being driven by the wind and are burning themselves out. Just not enough man power to fight them and who can fight a 40 mph wind. Our electricity is back on although not our water. But with air conditioning all things are almost bearable.
I think the worst is over for us in this area although the fire is still raging in other areas. A typical wild land fire like so many of us have had to deal with in the past. My heart goes out to anyone who ever has to go through something like this. Peace and love to all my friends and family. Ev"
My neighbors, here in the rv park, and I sheltered in place. Around dawn today the winds, the Santa Ana's, picked up really bad and blew for about 6 hours. The winds blew the fire across the highway in several places but not right where we are. It's like we had a little bubble around us, lots of blowing sand and dirt but very little smoke compared to the areas north and south of us. About 3 miles south the fire burned several big homes on a big golf course, and 3 miles north it jumped the road and burned some things up there that are still burning so I don't know about that area. About an hour ago, 12:30pm Friday, the wind stopped blowing. It is so quiet and calm, what a relief. So now the fires aren't being driven by the wind and are burning themselves out. Just not enough man power to fight them and who can fight a 40 mph wind. Our electricity is back on although not our water. But with air conditioning all things are almost bearable.
I think the worst is over for us in this area although the fire is still raging in other areas. A typical wild land fire like so many of us have had to deal with in the past. My heart goes out to anyone who ever has to go through something like this. Peace and love to all my friends and family. Ev"
Note: Today the blogger program is having a hard time doing what I want it to do and unfortunately it has won the fight. Formatting errors are the result of the blogger, by Google, program.
By dawns early light we see what's going on.
Those are just dirt roads,
there is no firefighting activity going on here.
That arrow is showing where the road into La Misión is. In this picture the fire is on the back side of hill but to the right, into the town of La Misión, it burned right down to the road. It went around the little cafe and chiropractors office area leaving them untouched.
Friday afternoon we, Neil ,Victoria and I, went for a drive to check things out. Here you can see some smoldering area near the road by La Fonda restaurant. One structure was burned here but I don't know which one.
Friday evening.
"Saturday morning UPDATE: The crisis has passed. In some places the fire just burned itself out for lack of fuel. Sometime yesterday afternoon the Santa Ana winds stopped and that made a big difference in the fire, not fanning the flames. Our rv park was safe although a bit scary at times. Soon after the winds died the power came back on. The Santa Ana winds are HOT, yesterday about 95º, so with air conditioning running my neighbors and I piled into my car, they don't have a car just a class C, and went to see the damage. It wasn't as bad as we thought, around our area. There was a lot of damage in this fire but just not around where we are. I read last night that over 100 homes burned and 2 people died, today those totals will probably be higher now that the smoke is clearing. Last night it was quiet and dark, no glowing mountains and not much smoke. It's over for us right here but there are still fires burning in this area of Baja and still some smoke in the air. This was my first time experiencing the Santa Ana winds. Holy shit. I hope to never go through that again. My skin is pealing off my arms, it was like standing in a sand blasting booth. I have a bruise on my head where I got hit by flying debris. YUCK. But I'm fine, no damage to rv or kitties. All is good."
I'm going to post a link to Wikipedia's explanation of the Santa Ana Winds.
Here is the link to the NASA Fire Map. You can change the dates and move around the country to see what has or is going on. But no updates on the weekends.
Ok, enough of this. I'm fine and will stay here until December then I will move on down the road. More on that later.
