Good thing you’ll have a tuba as right now, we all smell like smoke!
I’m in northern Vallejo near Hwy 29, almost in AmCan, actually, and the smoke here has been about as bad as anywhere, save for Fairfield - a friend up there opened his door yesterday morning to get the paper and his smoke alarms went off. :eek:
And the most bizarre video of the day (or ever) - USPS delivering to burned out homes.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/11/mail-carrier-delivers-to-devastated-santa-rosa-coffey-park/
Watched a drone video today(sorry, don’t remember the link) and felt as though I was viewing a video of neighborhoods in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb burned everything to the ground. Looked just the same. Hope they get it under control soon.
Missed the edit window. The Mercury News website is garbage.
Here is the original video posted to youtube:
Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa here, near the middle school. Have been under mandatory evacuation since Monday.
The house is still there but only by the merest chance - the fire stopped just a few hundred yards to the west on one side and to the northeast on the other. Many friends and neighbors are completely burned out with nothing to return to except a chimney. Its kind of astonishing how houses are just absolutely flattened - no framing or walls left, just completely burned. Schools are out for the rest of the week and who knows yet about next week if they can’t get the Oakmont and Bennett Valley fires under control soon.
What the TV shows of the devastation doesn’t begin to convey how horrible it is. And the air quality is terrible as well. Once the actual danger dies down the worry becomes looters, and there have been lots of reports of fake cops going door to door telling people to evacuate, so that the empty houses can be looted.
The worst part is how hard it is to get any info about where the fires are and which direction they are heading and how fast they are moving. The uncertainty is difficult. On the other hand the community is coming together in really inspiring ways, and it’ll be a long hard rebuilding process we’ll all have to go through.
Stay safe everyone.
This afternoon there were ashes falling from the sky outside my house. I live in El Cerrito, about 40 miles from Santa Rosa as the crow flies.
We had a fine layer of ash on the car here in Citrus Heights.
that’s really low
:mad:
My kids school just canceled tomorrow. I’m 60 miles or so away.
I have family members in 4 separate houses that evacuated yesterday. From the cal fire map, their houses are directly in between two of the larger fires in Santa Rosa. They will be fine, but I’m pretty skeptical about the houses.
Sucky.
Tahoe basin filled with smoke. Also east, over the crest into the Carson Valley. High winds all day long. THE SUCK!
It’s disgusting but it seems to be common; looters were pretending to be cops to trick people out of their homes during & after the recent hurricanes as well.
Wait till the “fake” contractors come in after the dust settles. They’ll get you to put a deposit down and then skip town. There is going to be a huge demand for construction to rebuild, and a shortage of legit contractors.
I hope you’re staying safe, DT. Keep us updated on things around where you live.
I’m quite a ways south of all the fires, but it reminded me of Blade Runner yesterday (without the rain). I can hardly imagine how bad the air must be north of SF.
I was in Walnut Creek yesterday for a meeting, and the air was like a smokey fume.
Here you can see a map of the air quality for the Bay Area (you can also enter your zip code for elsewhere). The area around Fairfield was in the “Hazardous” category yesterday.
I appreciate all the updates from local Dopers (esp Jumpbass) - please be safe and take care.
Right now (Thursday 8:00 a.m. PDT) the map shows the air quality being worse in the central Bay Area than in the fire areas. For instance, the Air Quality Index for most of San Francisco and much of Oakland is in the Unhealthy range, while Santa Rosa itself is shown in the Moderate range. I find this hard to believe.
Here is the five-day forecast from Spare the Air. Today’s forecast predicts the North Bay (including the fire areas) as Very Unhealthy, while the rest of the Bay Area is shown as Unhealthy. This seems more reasonable.
On the other hand, for yesterday it shows the air quality in the Eastern District (which includes Walnut Creek) as better than in the Coast and Central Bay (which includes El Cerrito, where I live). I was also in Walnut Creek yesterday morning, and my eyes (and nose) told me the smoke was much worse there than at home. I suspect the reporting zones are large enough that, in conditions like we have now, the average for a whole zone doesn’t tell much about the air quality at any one point.
Here’s another site with more localized data about air quality. Unfortunately, the only place in Sonoma County that it shows is Sebastopol. It surprised me that Sebastopol now has better air quality than most of the Bay Area, even though it’s only about 8 miles from Santa Rosa as the crow flies.
Sorry as I am that the air quality is so bad elsewhere, today here in Napa the sun came up it’s normal yellow color and the sky is blue. We’re totally ready for a break and breathe normally for a bit.
Last night was a bit of a nightmare, though. I was at my gig feeling a bit guilty for leaving the house, but doing okay, when I get a text alert from the sheriff’s office that my neighborhood is under an “advisory evacuation” notice. :eek:
Ruined my night, it did. No reason given, just advice to get out if you have no good reason to stay. Certainly not mandatory.
So I beat it home and find out, hey, no big deal. I couldn’t see any fires glowing on the ridge or visible flames. Well, WTF? :dubious: Took a drive up the road to have a look and did see some flames on the ridge and more a little closer that ended up being a back fire the firefighters set. (I found that out on the local radio later) OK, then, cool. We stayed home for the night.
Ends up that they were worried that the wind may kick up again and blow the fire at us. THAT was why the timing seemed odd. It looked a hell of a lot more dire on Monday and Tuesday. Nobody really emphasized that, just said get out if you can. Panicked a LOT of folks including me.
(By the way, a big fuck you to the drama queens and sowers of discord on the social media and calling in to the radio. We don’t need that.:mad:)
At any rate, we’re not out of the woods yet, but our situation isn’t anywhere near as bad as in other areas. (Take care, you guys.) The community is kicking ass taking care of each other and all the animals that have had to be moved.
Let me see if this link works. It’s to a[FaceBook post](<iframe src=“Facebook” width=“500” height=“648” style=“border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=“no” frameborder=“0” allowTransparency=“true”></iframe>) I made this morning for my non-Napa friends to give them an idea of what I’m dealing with. The photos are of my part of town. There are fire maps, too, with arrows pointing to about where I live.
At least yesterday, the winds were blowing from north to south, so the smoke and particulates were blowing out of the fire area and into the Bay Area.
Carson City checking in. Air quality yesterday wasn’t great I the afternoon. Mornings clear, then the wind with. Pick up…we will get it.
The death toll continues to rise, sadly. Latest figure is 29.
Finally called my lifelong friend in Santa Rosa. Had been calling his house phone for four days with no answer. Got his cell tonight. They’re alive, the house is toast. They’ll rebuild but his numismatic library is gone. One of the best in existence. Probably would take over $250,000 to replace and many works are almost non-extant except for a few copies.