Ells Field

Ells Field is the municipal airstrip serving the Willits area these days. It used to be on the floor of the valley, but apparently the winter fog made it difficult to use year round, so this mountain ridge shoulder was found about three miles out of town, and has been in use for several decades. For over a month, it was a staging site for the helicopter crews fighting the Mendocino Lightning Complex fires. A blogger called Chopper Chick described her experiences of that event.

Although the gate to the runway and pilot facilities was wide open when I visited, signs on the fence indicated that I would be shot, arrested, and then shot again (by the Feds) if I dared to enter without authorization. I was too afraid to take pictures of the signs.

Little Lake Valley

It is so wonderful to start getting our clean air back. This is a view of Little Lake Valley from a tiny turn-out on Sherwood Road. It's a familiar sight to the thousands of people who live up in Brooktrails and beyond, but I rarely get up that way. On the horizon, you can still see the lingering smoke of the many lightning strike fires started more than a month ago, and still being contained and controlled. We usually enjoy the spoiled expectation of pristine skies, giving us beautiful lichens and healthy lungs. The mountain in the middle is Red Hill (note the color of the soil on its base), and you may even be able to see the letter "W" up on its right shoulder [I just checked that, and you can't at this resolution]. On the near valley floor is the north end of Willits, although I don't know what the open lots are all about. In the near foreground of the photo is a plant called poison oak. As its leaves turn red, it is easier for newcomers to recognize. Woe be to anyone using its pretty leaves for toilet paper in the woods. One of the hardships for the convict crews and other fire fighters on these incidents is the vast rangeland covered with this stuff. I've heard that when it burns, the smoke is especially miserable if inhaled. Once again, hail to the many professionals and volunteers who have worked so hard for so long to engage an unprecedented number of simultaneous fires in our region.

NYT Features Mendocino County Volunteer Fire Districts

I just got word of a New York Times write up about our county's local volunteer fire fighters, featuring especially how they responded to the early alarms in the Mendocino Lightning Complex fires of the past weeks. The story was in the July 7th edition (Monday). Link to it here.

We still have a long, hot, dry fire season ahead of us, and these tiny rural units need funds to replace and repair equipment and materials that have been used up. They also need to pay for training for any new recruits they can muster.

If you feel inspired to send a check, here are some addresses, kindly provided by CalFire:

Albion-Little River FD
P.O. Box 315
Albion, CA 95410

Anderson Valley FD
P.O. Box 398
Boonville, CA 95415

Brooktrails FD
24880 Birch St.
Willits, CA 95490

Comptche FD
P.O. Box 154
Comptche, CA 95427

Covelo FD
P.O. Box 36
Covelo, CA 95428

Elk FD
P.O. Box 151
Elk, CA 95432

Ft. Bragg FD
141 Main St.
Ft. Bragg, CA 95437

Hopland FD
P.O. Box 463
Hopland, CA 95449

Laytonville FD
P.O. Box 399
Laytonville, CA 95454

Leggett Valley FD
P.O. Box 32
Leggett, CA 95458

Mendocino FD
P.O. Box 901
Mendocino, CA 95460

Redwood Coast FD
P.O. Box 245
Pt. Arena, CA 95468

Redwood Valley-Calpella FD
P.O. Box 385
Redwood Valley, CA 95470

South Coast FD
P.O. Box 385
Gualala, CA 95445

Ukiah City FD
300 Seminary Ave.
Ukiah, CA 95482

Ukiah Valley FD
1500 S. State Street
Ukiah, CA 95482

Westport FD
P.O. Box 63
Westport, CA 95488

Willits-Little Lake FD
74 East Commercial Street
Willits, CA 95490

Piercy FD
P.O. Box 206
Piercy, CA 95587

Whale Gulch FD
76850 #B Usal Rd.
Whitethorn, CA 95589

My particular thanks go to the Comptche department for fighting the Navarro Fire that nearly consumed my mother's home.

Smoke Rage

Listening to the community radio station and reading the papers and local Yahoo bulletin board, there seems to be concern about folks having "panic attacks" when having difficulty breathing in the smoky air. But what I've felt has been more akin to "road rage", where the frustration at circumstances that can't be controlled, namely dense smoke in every direction, starts to manifest as anger. I'm calling it smoke rage.

When I left the house to go to work this morning, I could just barely see some blue color if I looked directly overhead at the sky. But the mountains surrounding Willits were still completely obscured by smoke. By mid-morning, a little wind had picked up, giving hope of some better air to come. Then just before lunchtime, fire engines started screaming down the road to the east, and the valley filled with even thicker white smoke - the lowest visibility yet. Apparently a new fire erupted on Pine Mountain somewhere. Nooooooooooooh! [Smoke Rage!]

And as I go to run some errands on my lunch hour, I see young mothers out strolling their babies is this muck! Children running around playgrounds! Do they not read the advisories?! Do they not hear the precautions to take on the radio?! Stay inside! Protect children from outdoor exertion! [Smoke Rage!]

When I got to the bank, the line was quite long and slow moving. Then a young woman comes in and leaves the door propped open! She was oblivious! I was heading over to it, when finally someone else coming in caught it for us. [Smoke Rage!]

Oh, and now, just as I write this, I feel a little earthquake jolt. Great. Let's just add insult to injury here. Unbelievable. Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw recently: Come the Rapture, can I have your car?

I have more pictures of the staging area on Navarro Ridge from last week, and others from here in Willits of helicopters and smoke, on my Overflow Blog.

The Mendocino Complex page at CalFire. If you go to the right side column on that page, there's a good map dated 6/29 of the incidents around here.

Please, I Want to Quit Smoking!

Looking north up Main Street/Highway 101 in Willits Friday afternoon, I saw some drivers with their headlights on. This is all smoke from thousands of acres of forest fires, not fog, and it continues to fill Little Lake Valley with hazardous air, and in temperatures near 90 degrees. Like the sign says, there seems to be "No Exit", no end in sight.

Some smoke comparison shots are on my Overflow blog, linked here.

Where There's Smoke

My thanks to everyone who has continued visiting this blog, commenting on the scheduled posts. And my thanks as well for the concern for my mother and her home. I've just returned from her house over on the edge of the Navarro Fire, and can report that I am much relieved to have seen the situation for myself. I had prepared for a moonscape, but while much changed, the trees still define the landscape. Much of the understory is burned out beneath them, but that will return eventually. The grass and understory burn was intentionally set on Saturday, to serve as part of a containment line for our edge of the Navarro Fire, which at last report was 3000 acres big. This means we fared much better than the wildfire area without the preburn, just beyond our land, which was far more thoroughly damaged.

I spotted just one serious flare-up on our edge. With fantastic luck, the staging area for the firefight on the west end of the thing is on our property, so I could report the problem without using a telephone. I'm here to tell you, when these guys go to work, it's fast and earnest! Rick Hautala, an employee of one of the nearby timberland owners, was just unloading his ATV as I approached, and I asked him to check the plume I was concerned about. He zipped over, then roared back to the staging field, radioed that the fire had jumped the line, and a 'dozer was required. It seemed alomst immediate that the sound of a tractor-bulldozer came speeding out of the forest. I watched as Rick raced the bulldozer down the road and attacked the fire! His first response with that machine was amazing, smothering the flames with rapidly pushed soil, taking down small timber, and clearing the way for the arriving crew from Marin County with their pump truck and hose and axes! And the Marin guys did their work just as expertly, dousing the flames with the hose, chopping away at the hot ground spots, diligently "mopping up" for hours afterward to secure the line once again. This was all within a couple of hundred yards of my mother's house.

After they had been working there for a while, I walked back to the Marin County crew, and caught the attention of one of the three or four men. What a privilege it was to be able to look one of them in the eye, and thank him, even as he straightened from axing hot embers on the ground! I tried to express the generations of memory on the land he was saving - even as it was anonymous to him - and he filled in the word for me. It was "personal", this help he provided to us. I could thank him from my heart, and I could also thank the quick thinking and action of Rick Hautala.

There are so many I could not personally thank, but I hope they know how much the gratitude and admiration is felt. The gracious men I spoke to would habitually refer to some other crew or individual who deserved more thanks than themselves. Of particular note are the front-line crews from the Department of Corrections (prisoners) work camps, such as Parlin Fork, Chamberlin Creek, and Ft. Jones. They were the ones with the hoes and adzes, chopping a fire break around my mother's house. They are the ones out on the direct fire lines, clearing away fuel from the hungry flames. Hauled by securely enclosed trucks, they were transported from one hot spot or fire line establishment to the next. The few times I actually could see them, they were grabbing what moments of sleep they could catch, on the ground, closely watched beside their trucks.

My mother had voluntarily evacuated to a friend's house over beside the ocean for the last five days. I received a graciously generous discount to stay at the Little River Inn, beside the smokeless ocean each night. When I left earlier today, I felt reasonably secure of my mother being safely back in her home. The main action of the Navarro Fire has moved many miles southeast now, but we must be vigilant. I'll be going back over there in a couple of days to see how it goes. I have tons of pictures that I still haven't processed for posting. When I do, I'll link from here to some of them on my Overflow blog.

Thank you again for all the good thoughts out there. It's going to be okay. The photo essay is here on my Overflow blog.

The official Mendocino County current wildfires information page is linked here.

Fire Update

I just talked to my mother, and her house on Navarro Ridge is still there. The eastern half of the property has burned, and the fire breaks bulldozed yesterday are doing their job. Back burns on the grasslands and woodland understory have been effective, and there are tenders watching the ongoing smolders on that defense line. The CDF crews are now further out on the lands beyond, where the Navarro Fire still rages. The neighbors' house nearby is intact as well. They have been able to retrieve more from the house to take to storage on the coast.

The danger is not passed. Cinders float through the air, and wind conditions can change at any time. It may be days before the all clear is given. I can only imagine how altered the property is, a place of my life story for half a century, and my mother's for thirty years more than that. We knew the fire day would come eventually, and are so grateful to all the people out there fighting more than 130 fires in Mendocino county, started by an extraordinary lightning storm on Friday.

KZYX radio is the best source of local, updated information. As I type this, they announce that voluntary evacuation is recommended for Rancho Navarro, which is threatened by the same fire as my mother's place.

Some useful links have been posted on the Yahoo Groups Mendocino-BB:

http://geomac.usgs.gov/ (Click "wildfire mapping", zoom in on your
area, select "MODIS
satellite" from the bar on the right, and click refresh)

Satellite:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/eka/satellite/ (Click "Northern California 1
KM visible")
When the clouds clear the smoke will be easier to see.

EDIT: A link I found at NASA Earth Observatory, click on the MODIS Rapid Response Team link to the twice daily satellite images for Northern California.

Fire Break

This news is big for me, small for most of you. On Friday and Saturday, Mendocino county got hit by a bunch of "dry storm" lightning, with as many as 90 fires counted here by the combined emergency agencies. The biggest is now reported as involving 1400 acres, and currently threatens very few homes, and which is nowhere near contained. But one of the homes threatened is my Mom's. From what she told me earlier today, the crews have staged part of their fight on her north hill field, the highest point on the ridge. Bulldozers have cut wide firebreak lanes through the property and beyond. We hope her house will be saved, but she has evacuated voluntarily. All we can do is wait, and hope there is enough manpower and equipment for the crews to succeed in their battle safely.

I've had hit and miss luck with the Blogger Scheduler, but I'll be loading in some posts just in case I'm away from my computer for a while.