Burnin' down the house

Okay, so I don't know how hot it was yesterday, but apparently it was hot enough for my freaking neighborhood to burn down. I got out of the shower and heard sirens, but really didn't think much of them as they seemed to be moving away just as quickly as they had approached. Then I heard the loud sqwak squack squawk of a fire engine and realized they were a hell of a lot closer than I'd originally thought.



I opened my garage door to find engine upon engine parked across the street going both up and down my street, and obviously, the air was filled with smoke. How I hadn't smelled it until that moment is beyond me. I was trying not to be a stupid looky-loo, so I stood in my garage and watched and took a couple of pictures. We had to take refuge inside pretty quickly as it got too smokey and I figured it wasn't great to be purposely breathing all that crap. Avery liked watching the "pireman" outside though. Maybe she was calling them "pyre-man?" Hmmm.


Later in the day, I went over to have a look at the destruction. Quite the burn, though my pictures don't show much of it. Since I live at the edge of a hill, it was tough to take a picture looking down. I ended up having to leave because the power went out and I couldn't circulate any air in the house, and the smoke had gotten pretty overwhelming.


In the evening I drove over to the other side of the hill and I could really see how much had burned. The houses at the top of the hill are across the street from me. On the one hand, I'm glad I don't live on their side of the street, but at the same time, the reality is that we have brush just like that on both sides of my house too.


Gotta love this time of summer in Southern California. The sun, the water... the sun igniting the dry brush and the firemen using the water to put out the fire that's about to burn your house down.