4:00 a.m. Sunday morning

Greetings Fellow Fire Watchers:

 

It is a bit after 4:00 a.m. this Sunday morning here on Rock Creek.  Tyler has just completed his early morning watch and I have arisen to follow the fire's development through the dawn hours, something that I can do effectively not only in our command observation station in the driveway but also here in my MT office, as all of the fire's development last evening was upstream from us and easily observable from my office window.

 

One picture tells it all, and I have forwarded it to our office manager to post with this note when she arises (it is only 3:00 a.m. in the Bay Area):  

In marked contrast to the pictorially portrayed in the John Horton shots of around 11:30 p.m. last evening (also to be posted on Der Blog), the fire has, indeed, "cooled down" and "layed down" (another one of those great new fire phases learned over the last several days) over the nighttime hours, having a "good burn" as our Grayback ground crew of 12 told us when we served them coffee and cookies at 10:30 last evening.  The torrential fire activity that John's pictures dramatically show was our best news of the day, as the fuel that was consumed all night was done in an orderly fashion when no winds were a-blowing to whip it into a frenzy--and that was our huge concern late yesterday afternoon, as if that hillside (over 30 acres in size) were to have torched in the projected (but not realized) 25 m.p.h. winds, it would have created a firestorm that would have potentially burnt out this entire Rock Creek valley and everything unprotected in its path.  What both we and the Graybacks were concerned about was embers from that fire floating our way and setting the nearside of the Creek ablaze; that's what we have watched for all evening long and, blessedly, there have been few, if any, embers to be found.

 

One question that has to be asked and answered is "Were we crazy to 'ride it out' [yet another phrased introduced to us by the Graybacks last evening]??"  The answer from our perspective is an unequivocal "no".  At no time other than during the wind events of the last two days have we felt in anyway threatened; it was imperative, from our perspective, to keep our gasoline water pump a-going all evening to protect the critical creek side perimeter of property with constant mist and spray (Tyler refilled its fuel tank twice during his shift--something that never would have occurred if we hadn't been here) and, at all times, we were ready, willing and able to depart from here in an orderly manner if we needed to.  {Just now the pump ran out its gas supply and I break to refill and restart it--DONE!}  Also, at multiple times throughout the day we

asked crew after crewmember "how things were going" and "were we in their way or in anyway impeding their work?"  The answer to those questions was always one that told us our presence, from their perspective, was, more than not, a relatively safe one, and, on the sustenance side, a truly appreciated one.

 

Hence, we chose to stay; to protect that which we thought needed our protection; and, most importantly, to provide food and warm evening drink to the firefighters who patrolled our shores until the end of their shift at 1:00 a.m.--even they were confident that by that time that this fire was a safe one to leave alone to its own devices for balance of the early morning hours--witness:  I am alone here.  Also, with our all night vigil we chose, on our own, to be doubly safe in our decision--when I relieved Tyler a bit ago he said, "Dad, there is really no reason for you to stay up--the fire is really calm."  My answer, "Thanks, Ty, but I will stay up for safety reasons."

 

Outside the hillside campfires of the Orcs, that burn so brightly and fervently at midnight, have died down; the upstream hillside has burned itself safely almost all the way to the Creek, and it is the only random (and eerie) sound of a falling tree (sounding like the clap of thunder in a Rocky Mountain thunderstorm) that breaks the early morning silence--other than the constant put-put-putting for our now invaluable pump that is, and that sound would have been silent as well had we chosen to abandon ship.

 

Thus another fireside day begins; we have no idea what the (Sun)day's events might be, but we are more than confident that today will be a better fire day for us than have been the last two days of grave concern.

 

Best to all and thanks to all for your loudly heard and much appreciated kind thoughts and prayers,

 

RCR