Fires.....

So this has been a really rough week for us.....last Monday, around 1 am, we like up to the smell of thick smoke.   Actually, it smelled kind of like burning trash....I remember that smell from my childhood as my grandpa Harris used to burn trash....Anyhow, at first, I was alarmed that our house was on fire, but it seemed like the smell was coming from outside.   I vaguely remembered hearing about a small fire in Napa before I went to bed, so I closed the windows, took a couple of puffs from my inhaler (I was wheezing) and went back to sleep.

Well, we found out in the morning that the night had been really bad.   Not only had the fire in Napa spread, but several other fires had broken out in Sonoma county, destroying many neighborhoods.   Many families had mere minutes to evacuate the homes, and some were not even that lucky.   The total extent of the devastation is still not known, but at least 40 so far have been killed in the fires.

 

Meanwhile, Jason's parents and Grandma, who all live in Sonoma, evacuated on Tuesday, as fires were forecast to spread.   Since then, they have been on pins and needles every minute watching the news for updates.   As of tonight, a big fire is still less than a mile from their home, but it is more contained than it had been.  

In Marin county, where we live, we have been enveloped in smoke.  Ash is flying through the air, and depending on the wind, the visibility has been terrible.  Kids have been kept inside at school all week, and on Friday, Ethan's school was closed due to the conditions (I had a bit of trouble understanding this since the air is NO DIFFERENT three blocks away at our home).   But anyhow, it has been bad.   Today I took the kids to a birthday party in the city and I took this picture--look at the thick blanket of grey smoke north of the golden gate bridge (it is not FOG!):

:


Hopefully, the firefighters will continue to make progress and get these fires under control soon.