Holy shit my city is on fire
 

There are 3 separate wildfires going on right around us. First was the rural town of Bastrop, which we have been watching with tragic interest but were not worried about for ourselves because it is 30 miles southeast of the city and was reported to be moving in the opposite direction.

But then later today Steiner Ranch caught fire, in a seemingly unrelated incident (other than the fact that we've all been suffering through the same drought conditions,) and that subdivision is within the city itself, on the west side, and considerably closer to us.

And now there's another fire in Leander, which is genuinely close to us. I have multiple friends who live within 2 miles of the most recently-reported borders of that fire, and if the Leander fire gets as big as the Bastrop fire, my house will be very much in range. They are unable to fight any of these on the ground due to the high winds and everything being dry as a bone, so the water helicopters are the only thing we have going right now. At the rate this crap is spreading, it's conceivable that we might get an evacuation order in the middle of the night tonight.

Bloody hell Clod. Hope it doesn't come to that. Keep dropping by let us know you're ok.

I hope your house has the recommended defensible space around it. Be safe and please follow evac orders if they are given.

How big is that? I'd say we have about 12, maybe 15 feet between us and the neighbors on each side. You'd better believe we're getting out if they tell us to. But when they give the evac order, do you have 30 minutes to throw necessities in the car, or do they wait to tell you until you really have to get out-out-out?

Recommended is a good 100ft of open space between your house and trees, brush, and other structures. Good rule of thumb is twice distance your tallest tree measures. Seems like you're in a more suburban than rural area, so get anything flammable out of your yard, pre pack the car with necessities and some valuables. Use the free time now to think about what you want and can take, instead of rushing at last minute if you're given evac orders.
They will give you a rough time frame to get out. Unless it is imminent, which is where it is good to have the car prepacked.
If you have some hoses and sprinklers you should set those up on vinyl siding, wooden eves, and porch/deck. A low constant misting is fine, will help douse airborne embers that land on flammable surfaces. Those water drops from the helos won't hold the fire back. The ground crews need a strong line around it.

Pack the car NOW. Or at least make a pile of necessities by the door ready to load. Especially with the special needs of your kids, if you need to go, you'll really want it.

The last minute evacuation is just about the most dangerous thing you can do (short of running naked into the flames). Down here the rule is to either (A) go early, or (B) stay inside the structure until the main front has passed, then come out and fight the spot fires. Option B does not work with really big fires, but by the time people realise that, it is too late. They try the last-minute dash. It ends badly.

Take care, Clod, and listen to Bullitt more than me 'cause he knows your local conditions better.

Good Luck Clod, but I hope you don't need it.

Be safe!

Shit! We had the wettest August ever. Wish I could send some rain your way ...

Good luck favors the prepared, so prepare!

And keep in touch!

Clod, run this way if you need to...I can take care of up to eight refugees if needed.

Heh. This is the worst drought we've had since the 50s. My yard is flammable. Completely brown and dead, from curb to fence. That's why they can't keep these things under control. Over the whole state there are something like 63 currently active fires.

Crap! Listen to Bullitt and get things as prepared as you can.
Please stay safe.

I've been seeing posts like this
all over facebook today. I wasn't sure if they were bogus.

Yeah that's what I've heard. I was speaking more of plastics, wood piles, lawn mowers, gas cans, etc. Don't bother watering the yard. Won't do any good at this point. The water will just vaporize before it has a chance to really saturate the plant matter. And even then the fire will dry saturated grass very quickly.

Waiting for Bachmann to say the fires are God trying to get Rick Perry's attention.

Whether an overwhelming threat is man or nature, a time proven response is to "create distance." In battle this means immediately moving at least one masking terrain feature away. Determine the equivalent for your situation and you'll have a plan for no notice evacuation. With short notice, the priority is still a timely departure; however, it now means leaving early enough that there will be alternate means of transportation available should yours fail. Enhance your post-evacuation situation thru advance preparation; but, don't jeopardize a timely evacuation for it ... take care fobble family.

I made ready to evacuate last year and I'm still ready with fifteen minutes notice.

The RV is ready to go, full of water, food and extra clothing. All I need to do is disconnect it from shore services and hook it to the truck and I'm gone.

My important paperwork is secure and nothing is irreplaceable. I just need to dress, grab the dog and my keys and I can be gone. I have four sites spotted for easy planning. All I need to know is which direction I need to go to be safe.

And should there not be enough time to hook up, I still have a plan and two safe sites.

I meant it Clod... I know I'm a ways away but I'm pretty safe here, what with a large lake close by and all. Your family will be welcome.

Update: Leander fire has spread a little, but it's 70% contained. Still at least a mile from everyone I know. Unlike Bastrop, which so far has destroyed over 500 homes (rural homes, so that's much larger ground coverage than it sounds like) and is still 0% contained. But Bastrop's far enough away that it's not a threat to me.

Now we just have to hope we get some rain before another asshole throws a cigarette butt out his car window.

500 homes? Oh that's awful. Those poor families. My God, what a nightmare.

Fingers and toes all crossed that you and yours aren't caught up in this. And Pilau's crossing his legs.

Hoping for Texas rain, Clod. Be careful.

It's even made it onto BBC Radio 5 Live.
Didn't even think about the fact it might be near a Dwellar - one thing I know about Texas, it is BIG.

Hoping all goes well for you Clod, sorry to hear friends are being threatened.

You leaving the wife behind??!!??!!??!!

I have friends in Bastrop I am freaking out :( My friend took in a couple in their 70s who had 14 dogs mostly geriatric. When they came to evacuate them they were only allowed to take 3 dogs WTF? My friend is sure their house burned to the ground. :(

OMG, that's horrible Nirvana.

Only if she can't keep up! :D


Seriously, she's safe in El Paso right now. There's not enough brush or grass to feed a fire in that armpit. That's my western bug out location.

Oh gotcha. Was thinking I missed something.

Awesome and somewhat insensitive "My City Was Gone" song parody redacted.

Damit, I hate fires. So much destruction.

Please touch base when you can, Clod. Take care.

The news this morning was saying over 1000 homes now destroyed. *Shakes head*

Very scary stuff.

I saw that. Very sad....

Google Fire Map. It looks like Clod's surrounded.

Another fire yesterday at an apartment complex in the center of north Austin, on the highway between our house and Mr. Clod's work. It got put out quickly, but Mr. Clod had to take a different route home due to onlooker traffic, plus it knocked out power to the therapy clinic so I had to come pick up Minifobette and the other carpool kids early. This time they said they were investigating a "person of interest," not sure whether that means this one was deliberate, or just that somebody saw the smoker who doesn't understand what "outdoor burn ban" means.

When I was driving out to get the kids, there was a big blackened patch on the grass about 1/2 mile from my house. Only about 20 feet in diameter, and obviously put out fast enough that the local news wasn't even alerted, but still, it wasn't a comforting sight. My friend told me that the Leander fire came within 4 houses of theirs.

Sorry to hear about your friends, Nirvana. :( A big animal shelter in Bastrop was evacuated, and there's not enough room for them so local radios have been pushing to get them adopted right away, no fees or anything, just come and pick up any animal you want...

First day of classes here.... and everybody is going home early from the flooding. We need a pipeline to Texas.

Yeah, I really wish I could divert this weather to Austin. I'm not complaining about the rain, but we really don't need it.

And I just got an alert that I-395 is flooded and closed. I can picture the underpass where I bet it's flooded. Glad I don't drive, the evening driving commute is going to suck.

Just got an email from Pete's cousin, the Bastrop fire came within .2 of a mile of their house. His daughter had ash in her hair when they hit the road. Scarey stuff.

Jesus, that's a close call.

Keep checking with them on the status of their house, Griff. It's still only 30% contained.

Will do. The dichotomy between NY/PA and Texas weather is just nuts. Rain is just pouring down here, roads are washing out, schools are closing, dummies are losing pickups to the flood waters and you guys are just parched down there.

A link from my cousin, who also lives in Austin

Well, we're prayin' for ya.

I'm glad you're ok Clod. I'll be hoping it stays that way for you and your family and friends. xx

Another from my cousin:
The Texas State Bar has activated its toll-free disaster legal hotline at (800)504-7030 to assist the public with basic legal questions such as replacing lost documents, insurance, landlord-tenant issues, and consumer protection. Other key disaster relief resources can be found on the State Bar website: www.texasbar.com

I'm in Houston (how would you know?), actually Kingwood which is up on the NE side of the city in very heavy forested area. It is really getting scary here, dead trees everywhere and super dry brush. I have lived in S. California and know what dry is, especially in the fall when the Santa Ana winds pick up but it's hard to imagine protection your home when you have 100ft tall trees all around you.

My wife and I have started compiling a game plan of what to grab if we have to leave in a hurry. We have a fire proof safe but these fires have been burning so hot I wouldn't trust it and will clean it out.

Cameras and lenses of course! ;)
Jewelery, some small family mementos that are easy to pack
Computer towers and hard drives
Important papers, wills, deeds and titles, etc.
the dog
Granola bars and bottled water
Cans of spam.
Tobasco sauce.

etc...:right:

Went out with a group of volunteers today, cleaning up burned homesites. The house we were assigned to was still standing and livable, but all of the vinyl siding had melted into slag, and a dozen blackened trees needed to be cut down (or had conveniently fallen down for us already) and cleared off the property. I was impressed with how organized things were at the tiny church that was serving as the operations base for volunteers. They had pre-printed maps of each area, and lists of what stage of repairs each house was in, so if you came with a chainsaw you'd be sent to a house that still needed trees removed, etc.

Got a lot of work done, talked to some good people, and got extremely filthy with soot. But even knowing how dirty we all were, I was still pretty startled when I blew that first black booger into the kleenex...

Thats awesome Clod. What a wonderful thing to do.
Even better that it was set up and run so smoothly.

Things are looking bad right now.

Not only have we not had the extra rain we needed from this summer's drought, we are still receiving a good deal less rain than normal. Still on mandatory stage II water restrictions. Winter is effectively finished--it's going to hit 85 degrees this afternoon--and summer is heading towards us full-speed.

Our water utility provider is in trouble with the public because it came to light that they've been selling some of our water to farmers further south. Meanwhile, a rural area to the north of us is pissed because their utility company gave emergency water supplies to us at the height of our problems in August, and now they themselves are running too low.

I'm pretty sure that soon they will announce that all lawn-watering is completely forbidden this year, and uncovered pools will be fined as well (most are already full, but if it's uncovered too much evaporates and they require a certain amount of regular refilling.) We will still have enough to drink and shower, no worries there. The problem, as always, is the fires. Long-dry places like Arizona don't have a huge fire risk because there's nothing growing to begin with. We are increasingly surrounded by dry-as-a-bone dead wood and grass, and we're not allowed to water it...

What kind of xeriscaping/preburning/covering with gravel can you do now before you spontaneously combust? I mean, around your dwelling that is.

Maybe it's time to move to Canada.

HLJ's state has tons of H2O right now. Maybe they can ship it to you.

We could, except UPS can't get up the road.

We've been in our own drought this year.

Realistically, none. For one thing, we have deed restrictions that wouldn't allow us to randomly cut down the trees and cover the yard with gravel. But that aside, we live in a typical cookie-cutter suburb, and the houses are minimum distance apart. We can't make our neighbors cut down all their trees too, and we can't make their houses scoot over 10 yards.

We're not really worried about the house burning down; and if it did, we have fire insurance, and an evacuation plan, including the things we would pack up in a hurry. But in this land of weirdos who care about having a lush, green lawn, I can easily see neighbors breaking out in fistfights if someone is caught watering when no one is allowed to.

If that happens, get video.

We have had incidents of water rage here.

At the worst of the drought in Adelaide, lawn watering was down to one hour a week, hand held hose, after dark. Senior citizens had certain exemptions to water before dark, but many people didn't know this. Arguments sometimes ensued.

It's been raining a bit lately, but Clod, I know what you're facing. It sucks. Water is everything. Well, nearly.

I'm sure I've told this story before, but in case you don't remember one of my fifty billion posts, it's worth repeating.

Water is everything. I remember a drought...must've been 88 or so because I wasn't long out of school...and there was just no rain for I don't know how long. I lived in town at the time, and when it finally rained, from almost every house, people came out and just stood in it. Then we were all kind of hopping around in it, laughing and cheering...we were so happy. It was such a relief. It seems silly unless you've gone through a serious one, almost too dramatic. But it was real relief, and I remember that time acutely all these years later, because it was just...like, it's Ohio ffs. Where'd you put the extreme weather?

And those who watered their lawns somehow anyway were looked upon with disdain. ;)

I remember being threatened with standpipes in the street in 1976.
I was worried because we lived on a path not a street.
I have a real memory of a standpipe at the end of our path. This "real" memory is complete fiction, cobbled together from news footage of other people's plight and conversations about how we would get our water if the drought continued.

Mummy and Daddy filled our camping water bags (which had a dispensing spigot on them) in case of emergency.

Mummy was pregnant and we needed to be able to flush the toilet, even though we were told we weren't supposed to. I was four. It was all very confusing. But it was a damned hot summer, and a dry one.

When I watched 28 Days Later the need for fresh water really resonated with me (if you've seen it you'll know what I mean, if you haven't it's not really worth the explanation).

I remember that year in Ohio. I think we stood out in the rain at one point, too. I lived there then, but we moved partway through the year to Colorado. I remember thinking how strange it was that Ohio's drought conditions were like normal in Colorado. I missed all the green we were so used to in Ohio. Though CO is beautiful in many ways, we don't have the green lush-ness that other states do.

Drove by the first wildfire of the season this morning. Little baby blaze on the side of the highway, but the black smoke was causing major traffic problems.

Happy summer, everyone.

The way fires seem to have grown bigger and more frequent, I think it's time to get serious about aerial fire fighting.

A good number of the fires are either arson or carelessness. If we could eliminate those two, we'd be doing really well.