This is awful to follow, but I want to keep in the picture as we have old friends in the San Diego area and their email must be down (McKinney family). Just followed the link over to your cousin’s blog and saw the scary photos. Not good.

You don’t know me and my husband, but we want to tell you our prayers are with you all. We have two sons further up the coast, one only recently moved (thank goodness) from up the canyon north of the Malibu area.

Thanks for keeping everyone posted on this.

Guys,
I live in San Diego and am at work at UCSD Medical Center right now. Our burn unit is full as you can imagine. They are close to evacuating Solana Beach right now. I live in Clairemont myself and had to be evacuated last time (4 years ago), but seem to be safe currently. I think my bosses home in Rancho Bernardo has burned down. I hope that Connor’s relatives in Poway are safe. I heard that there were several multi-million dollar homes burning there. The wind is very strong with the Santa Anna winds bringing in dry hot winds. There are 100,000 evacuees expected at Qualcomm stadium tonight. Many of our worthy young men in the 12th ward are heading down there to set up tents for the displaced. It’s truly an ugly situation.

Prevent house fires; don’t build in dry forests or grasslands….

Better yet… learn from the past 100 years when we didn’t allow the undergrowth and bush growth that we do now. One day people will wonder why we allow kindling to grow wild.

Connor,
Your aunt and uncles neighborhood was hit really hard. I haven’t been able to figure out if their house was burned, but many in their immediate neighborhood were. Most of central Poway seems to be safe, so your parents should be fine, but the edges of town have been hit really hard. Old Coach, Bridlewood and Green Valley have all lost a lot of homes. I still not sure about my parents house, but I know that the hill was burning next to them with some reports that firefighters may have saved the houses in their neighborhood. I hope your family is all safe and watched over.
To Josh – Thanks for the sensitivity! These are people’s lives and homes, not just some imaginary event far away. You’re pathetic if you think it is acceptable to spit in their faces while they are down on the ground.

Does anybody share the frustration I have with not being able to access favorite fishing and hunting areas because of excessive vegitation? A firefighter once told me that a home in the middle of an overgrowth of scrub oak is a nightmare waiting to happen.

How on earth could so many fires start at one time? It’s bizzare- 8 fires. no lightening, just the Santa Ana winds to fuel the fire. I grew up in SD, my family is there, my friends are there- such a beautiful town. I hope everyone’s loved ones are ok.

The Witch fire is now at 145,000 acres with a low-ball estimate of 500 homes burnt to the ground so far and with 0% containment. Santee is being threatened by a finger of the Witch fire. West of Santee is Tierra Santa (which was also hit 4 years ago) and west of Tierra Santa is Clairemont. The winds are not expected to die down until Thursday! We now have 16 burn patients at UCSD. Some are quite severely burned. We are being told that this will get worse before it gets better.

salth2o,

How on earth could so many fires start at one time?

a number of factors, cigarettes being one of them.

The biggest fire, the witch creek fire, was apparently started by a blown transformer.

Estimated Cost: More than $31 million dollars

It would also be accurate to say it was more than one dollar, but I suspect the damage was a bit more than 31 million. That would cover about 50 average cost homes in San Diego these days.

I just found out that my kids will be out of school for the rest of the week. 4 kids at home will be my wife’s biggest trial so far. Our ward is organizing donations to send to Qualcomm Stadium.

We have word that President Bush will be touring here on Thursday the 25th. Though we are a red city in a blue state, there were quite a few negative comments regarding his visit on the San Diego Union Tribune Newspaper website.

Amazing how people can find the time to bicker under the circumstances. Air quality is bad here. We are going outside with masks and rags on our faces, only if absolutely necessary.

I’ve heard that the evacuee numbers now total over 500,000 people. Wow.

Connor, I was just wondering about the original stats at the top which reported over 2200 homes destroyed and 15 deaths. As of this afternoon, Governor S said that there were approximately 750 homes destroyed and only one death.

I was not confused about the cost of the fire. Simple logic would tell me that it was about the cost of fighting the fire, not the estimated damage, which will definitely be in the billions.

Jay

I am in Redlands, not far from Arrowhead. We have lots of smoke and ash here, but are far from the fires. Evacuees are coming down the hill and camping nearby and I know that the local missionaries are doning Red Cross badges and helping out. My daughter works for Jamba Juice and just got back from delivering 800 cups of smoothies to the local evacuees. Traffic around here is awful. Even being somewhat removed from the fires, we’re seeing a lot of the fallout.

Jay

Oops! I misread that. Thanks.

Jay

Thanks Connor,

Last night I was mobilizing the kids to get some donations to Qualcomm Stadium, and checked the fireblog to find out that to the great credit of the people of San Diego, the stadium had closed down donations for the day as they had too much already! I’m not sure how many evacuees are at Qualcomm. I’ve heard of 100,000 people being there. It is great to see this town rally to help the dispossessed in this situation. I’ve heard there are bands at the stadium and a very good atmosphere of brotherly love and service. In this instance, I’m proud to be a member of this community.

Connor,
What your mom says is true. I can’t help but to contrast the evacuee situation in San Diego with the refugee situation coming out of Iraq (4 million people in and out of Iraq as I last heard). Their situation is infinitely worse than ours here in San Diego. We created their situation and yet refuse to allow them refuge in the USA.

Our Stake is requested to send volunteers to help clean up this week in Poway/Rancho Bernardo. Apparently 18 member households in the Poway Stake had their homes destroyed by the fire. And no, the Stake President’s home is still intact (in spite of some rumors going around). Many from our stake have signed up to help. This is not going to be a one weekend service project. President Heap (who spoke at our Stake Priesthood meeting tonight) of the San Diego North Stake was very animated about the destruction he had witnessed in Poway recently and told very moving stories about the 600 yellow t-shirted LDS volunteers helping out yesterday in Poway.

President Heap noted how great it is to see the San Diego community coming together under these tragic circumstances.

Going back to the contrast though… Most of these people have lost a lot (the ones who were burned out of home) but most of us have merely experience an annoyance in having to keep the kids home from school for a week etc. Those who were burned out will struggle with insurance companies trying to do the cheapskate thing with them, but this is no comparison to what the Iraqis are going thru. There is a good woman in Iraq who has been blogging since the start of the war and now has been forced at last to flee to Syria. Recently she wrote of how it finally hit her that she is a refugee. Please see her writing here:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#3939951753835220137#3939951753835220137

Connor,

I work with a lady at UCSD medical center whose home was burned down named Bernadette. She’s Chaldean. Anyway, I asked her how she’s doing today and she said she has a sweet mormon lady to take care of her. She says that she gets anything Bernadette needs such as pots and pans etc. and that she is a saint and an angel and she had no end of praise for this woman. As you can perhaps guess, this woman is your mother. Connor, you should be proud of your heritage. Please thank your mother for me for helping this lady that I love and work with for over 4 years now. God bless you and your family.

Come to think of it, one of my bosses, a Dr. Anne Laux also lives out there and was not burned down but on a separate occasion was singing your mother’s praises in the fire relief efforts. Dr. Laux was also quite pleased with some mormon teenage boys who offered to help her with her horses during the evacuation. Your mom definitely has a good name among my acquaintances.