Something else for people in the area that aren’t directly involved:
Remember the wind has been really bad so if you can see smoke or if there’s ash in the air there is a risk that there could be embers blowing over to you so try to keep your windows closed.
Again with the ash and smoke affecting the air quality so if you have any respiratory illnesses please take really good care of yourself!! Wear masks outside if you have to.
If any of your friends or family or colleagues are in the evacuation zone and you are in a safe zone with a fairly large house, I highly encourage you to invite them to stay with you for the time being. I can tell you from experience that evac centers can get pretty crowded and these fires are only spreading out more. There are only so many firefighters in this city.
Even if you don’t think you’re at risk as long as the weather is dry and the wind is strong there could be more fires and as we’ve seen today they can spread so quickly.
For all I know a fire could break out down the street later tonight and I will have to evacuate. Please be aware of everything above about evacuation that is all so important.
GUYS OKAY I’M GOING TO SHARE MY STORY BECAUSE THIS IS HOW SCARY IT IS FOR CALIFORNIANS RIGHT NOW: So people always ask you the first thing you’d grab if your house was on fire. I woke up this morning to the feeling of my phone vibrating and for the people who know me it’s just impossible to wake me up,so I turn off my phone and try to go back to sleep. Then came the sounds of helicopters that never seem to end and the sound of my house phone ringing incessantly. So I groan and look outside my window and there’s a fucking gray raging storm of smoke right next to my place. Then comes the slap of panic. The dogs. They were already sleeping on my bed and I was home alone, I grabbed the first bag I could find (superman backback from childhood) and put my teddy bear inside of it then grabbed my small heavy dogs under each arm and put my phone under my ear and talked to my dad who had been calling a trillion times. I started walking outside and started coughing, the smoke was so thick outside I started gagging, ash was rolling by on the ground, and there was an eerie orange glow cast over my surroundings. I start walking towards the front of my apartment complex to be picked up by my dad and realized that my dogs were just too heavy for me. I could hear the fire alarms honking and looked at the advancing wall of smoke that looked like a falling skyscraper of grey and I started hyperventilating, knowing that I wasn’t strong enough to carry my puppies to safety was terrifying. The fire was that close. Thank goodness my dad had arrived soon and helped me out, I was on the side walk trying to go inch by inch forwards but could barely contain my wriggling scared dogs. Apparently my pops had ran more than a couple red lights and drove over a couple curbs trying to get to me and a cop car was following him but my dad pointed a finger out the window at where he was going and the cop immediately understood and let him be. My family is safe and we were able to grab more belongings but my home was literally two buildings away from being burnt to the ground. Please pray/support all of the other Californians who have or might be losing their homes.
