Thank you so much, roseseek - very good to know. I lived in the LA coastal area when I was 11-12, and I still remember those Santa Anna (offshore, hot from the dessert) winds in the Fall.

Jackie

You're welcome, Jackie. I'm glad there is good news to report.

@roseseek When I saw the news this morning, my first thought was of Jeri and Clay. So glad you've been in touch and have (somewhat) good news, Kim.

@jacqueline9CA Thanks for starting this thread. I had thought about doing so myself. I may take a chance and email her, hoping she can access her email on her phone.

Fires are so scary. I am glad to hear they are okay. It sucks to be without power though. Hopefully they have a generator or the power issue gets resolved quickly.

The power issue is evidently that So Cal Edison has turned off the power in 5 counties (there are other fires burning in their territory) to 70,000 customers because of the high high wind, and super dry conditions all over So Cal. So, it is unlikely to improve until the wind changes back to its normal onshore (from the ocean) state, which is much more humid.

Our power company in No Cal (PG&E - affectionately known to its customers as "Pacific Graft & Extortion" for the last 50 years at least) has also cut off power on purpose in several counties all over Northern Calif. The power lines frequently spark fires in these windy (not a little windy - think 80 - 100 MPH) and super dry (humidity in single digits) conditions. This has been happening ever since a PG&E power pole (which was over 100 yrs old, and not being maintained) set off the CAMP fire and totally burned the entire little town of Paradise to ashes, killing 85 people. No one much complains when they do that - it should have been done in that horrible fire in Hawaii, but was not.

Jackie

We were expecting all of this several years ago when they began whining about having to turn off power during wind events. We bought a Generac to go along with the solar on the roof as batteries weren't easily available, particularly as we'd bought our system and the new owner of the original company offering solar through Costco "didn't have a work-around" for supplying a new inverter to replace the owned one which was not compatible with the batteries, even though we bugged the hell out of them for a battery back up the entire time. I think I like the generator better. It's rather like earthquake insurance, once you have it, you never need it. The only times it's functioned have been when someone hits a power pole somewhere and the power goes out. Fortunately, PG&E hasn't turned off the power in the area for any reason since we bought it.

Jeri emailed me and let me know the power came back on last evening, and the fire is still heading east, away from her and Clay and the pups. Let's hope no one else is in danger from the fire, but I'm thankful Jeri is OK.

It's in the general area of Grace Rose Farm. It's difficult to tell from the fire maps how involved they may be. It's burning in the direction of Otto & Sons, the enormous wholesale/retail grower who propagates for her. Grace is in Somis, Otto in Filmore, both inland from Jeri. It's burning up the river valley which connects the Santa Clarita Valley to the Pacific.

I’ve been worried about Otto’s. They have such a beautiful place. Let’s hope they get a handle on this fire soon. It was only 7% contained this morning.

@sylviaww 10a, hot dry inland Socal, the closest I can figure, the fire is about 6.4 miles west, south west from Otto & Sons. It may be closer due to more recent advancements but the latest map with any kind of detail I can find, shows it about that distance.

Otto & Sons posted on their facebook that the firefighters may have got a handle on the fire burning west of them. Praying for everyone in the danger zone.

Whew (sigh of relief).

So, as Clay said, we were evacuated early on, but returned home (though still "evacuated" as the fire moved NW).

The hillsides in the area are largely blackened, and it's amazing to see how many of them are an un-burned house, surrounded by black. We appear to have lost some 130 homes, but no lives. So much Phos-check was used, there is a lot of chemical pollution, and we were restricted to bottled water for 3 days -- many still are. No showers until today. There is so much pollution, I have a constant sore throat.

The newer developmented area (to the West end, by the country club) is "The Heights.)

The old area, where we are, was used be called "Avocado Acres".

"The Heights" has most of the damage.

Much less, in "Avocado Acres".

Thanks for the update, Jeri. We've been concerned about you.

We were without power for about 2.5 days. It was surreal. No radio, tv, wifi, phones . . . NUTHIN. There are still problems, but it's better.

Jeri, glad to hear it. As for power - why not try a generator? There are solar-powered ones out now.
I can take about 24 hours without juice, but then — 🤯

Jeri - so very glad to hear that you guys and your place are safe. Fires are so scary!

Regarding generators, we got a generator, but my DH was just as worried about earthquakes (we are not far from the Northern end of the San Andreas fault) as fire power shut offs. So, he did not want to get one powered by natural gas, b/c the natural gas lines would get broken in an earthquake (which was what happened when I lived in SF in 1989 during the Loma Prieta quake). We don't get propane deliveries around here regularly, as they do in the very rural areas. Since it rains for 4-5 months almost straight here in the winter, he did not want to have to depend on solar.

So, guess what? We got a large gasoline burning generator. His (he in totally in charge of this project - I stay out of machinery or building related projects, as he is a pro) idea was that if there was an earthquake, one of the first things to be repaired (or even trucked in if necessary) was access to gasoline. And, we have 3 vehicles which we keep pretty full on purpose. Anyway, we have used it once - there was a huge fire, but it was 50+ miles away from us. PG&E turned off 100% of the power to our entire county non-the-less. This was shorty after the Paradise fire, and they had not figured out their process yet.

My DH managed to use our generator for our fridge/freezer, and our huge standing freezer in the basement (full of meat, and home made food like stews and soups, cooked by yours truly), and some lights, and ditto for our tenants in the upstairs flat we rent out, and also for both units in the duplex of our next door neighbors. The owner of that building lives in one unit, and is a contractor, so he had serious electrical cables, and Kurt helped him hook up his unit and also his tenants' to our generator. It worked out well, as that duplex was the closest of our neighbors to our generator, which was pretty noisy (all of the towns in our county have revised their noise ordinances to except the noise of generators during an outage or disaster), so they had no problem with the noise. The one other good thing was that, even though none of the gas stations in our entire county had power for their pumps, we live 15 minutes away from a nearby county whose power had not been turned off. My DH went over there a couple of times to get more gasoline during the short 2 day outage. Since then, of course, nothing has happened, but that is fine with me.

Jackie

Thanks for the update, Jeri. I had not heard about the fire until today. I've been avoiding news lately, which unfortunately means I also miss things I would have preferred to know.

I am very glad to learn that you are safe, and that your house and garden were spared.