Just a quick note to let you know that I am still writing and will have my next book out shortly, “IF I KNEW THEN.” It takes the reader back in time via an inscription in the end of a saxophone horn. More fiction and I do hope you will get the chance to read it.
This photograph was taken on our back porch in the early part of June of this year. It is HOT, but the humidity is nothing like the east coast that we left. The back yard is dry and we have to be very careful of fire.
Years ago I put an inch-and-a half fire hydrant by the garage and everyone in the family laughed at me – until a tread-mill machine caught fire and I was able to put it out with minimal damage. The laughing stopped.
I moved the hydrant closer to the house… just in case.
In 1999, on a Saturday in October, we had a fire near Lake Shasta, north of us, in an area called Jones Valley. I was still working at the newspaper at the time and listened on my scanner as the fire gained momentum. Knowing most of the roads, I became a little concerned when the fires started jumping roads and heading down the valley toward us. The fire was 20 miles away and in a matter of hours it was moving south toward us. Sheriff’s deputies came through the neighborhood and told people to evacuate. A Friend of son-in-law Jason drove a private water tender and started spraying our bushes and front lawn. Pick-up trucks arrived and the drivers and helpers came into the house and carried out our furniture. I don’t know where the furniture spent the night but we stayed at our daughter and son-in-law’s house. We had a few garbage can lid-sized burns in the back area and the house across the street on the corner burned to the ground. Some houses burned and some did not – the fire just picked and choose the victims.
With my police/newspaper credentials I was able to return the next day and I kept other neighbors abreast of the condition of their homes. I went to a friend’s house down the street and fixed a sprinkler on the roof to keep it wet.
Our belongings returned on Monday without a scratch on anything. Power was out for the rest of the week, but our generator gave us six house circuits to run the refrigerator, TV, and lights.
Anyway, I hope one can understand my concern about fire danger in the northern valley of California.
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