Dragon in the Land:

People and Mega-fire in California

• Episode One:
  Lightning and Smoke
• Episode Two:
  Remembrance of Fires Past
• Episode Three:
  Red Ball Sun
• Episode Four:
  The Running Battle
• Episode Five:
  Evacuations and Destinations
• Episode Six:
  Maze of Chaos
• Episode Seven:
  The Dragon in the West Village
• Episode Eight:
  Fire Camp
• Episode Nine:
  Man-dragon
• Episode Ten:
  Percent Contained
• Episode Eleven:
  Smart Work, Dumb Luck
• Episode Twelve:
  What To Do Before The Nightmare Comes True — Again

What's New

Writing

Dragon in the Land:
People and Mega-fire in California

by Howard V. Hendrix

Episode Three:
Red Ball Sun

The thunder of the great dry lightning storm is gone. Another type of electric crackle and hiss still sounds, however as Mary turns on the scanner and takes up her position beside it in the kitchen. Peter Shaw thinks she is overreacting — despite the smell of smoke heavy in the air around Corlew Mountain.

“You’re probably worrying too much about this,” he says. “As usual.”

“And you’re probably worrying too little about it,” she replies. “As usual.”

Pete smiles and shrugs. Another variant of their usual endless conversation. Between too much and too little, they seem to have struck a fairly successful balance, in their three decades of marriage. They haven’t driven each other too crazy, or too deeply into debt — at least not yet.

Pete initially bought the scanner to appease his brother Joe, the volunteer firefighter. Truth to tell, Mary has always listened to it more than Joe has. It appeals to the same part of her that also finds The Weather Channel relentlessly fascinating. Go figure.

Almost despite himself, Pete has learned to listen to the scanner and understand its noises. He recognizes the voices of the firefighters on duty at CalFire’s nearby Hurley and Blasingame Fire Control Stations. He knows how the captains of Battalions 11 and 12 sound when they come on the line.

As the sun settles toward the horizon, Pete begins to share some of Mary’s concern about the developing situation. Even if he hadn’t already smelled smoke, Pete would still know this wasn’t an ordinary day at the Fire Stations — just by the sound of those firefighters’ voices, and the high volume of communications traffic.

What is coming over the scanner now is not good. Grass fires have started between Millerton Lake and Sky Harbor Road, in the steep, sloping terrain north of Table Mountain Casino. Lightning-caused grassfires have also sparked up along the series of mesas known as the Tabletops, and have already turned into brushfires near Valerie Meadows.

The mention of Valerie Meadows and fire jogs Pete’s memory. He goes to his desk to look for a topographic map of his area. Battalion Chief Craig Tolmie mentioned something about that area when he stopped in to do a fire safety inspection of Pete’s property. He tries to remember exactly what it was that Tolmie said, but can’t quite put his finger on it.

That inspection, like the purchase of the scanner, was another thing Pete agreed to grudgingly — more to keep Joe off his high horse than from any more safety-minded motivation.

To be honest, Pete really didn’t think he had much cause to worry. It wasn’t like he lived in the middle of a forest, the way his brother Joe does. Pete made sure he brought that up to Tolmie when the Battalion Chief stopped in for the inspection.

Chief Tolmie agreed that different combustibles made for different types of fire. Fires in forested lands tended to “spot,” or cast firebrands a quarter mile and more ahead of the main fire. Spotting was much less of a problem in grassland fires, which tended to move fast and stay low (if you were lucky). Grassland blazes also tended to burn with less intensity and to be of shorter duration than fires in timberlands.

Pete has always thought that just keeping the grass cut back one hundred feet around structures, and discing a five foot wide area along the perimeter of the property, would be enough to keep his house defensible during a grassland fire.

Tolmie agreed that it usually was, but not always. Grassfires don’t always stay low. Too often they climb the fuel ladder, through brush and into bull pines and oaks. Those trees, once aflame, are quite capable of throwing off firebrands ahead of them, especially if the weather and wind conditions are right.

The bigger fuel-laddder problem, Chief Tolmie said, was that grass fires also readily climb into ornamental plantings that owners put in but neglect to keep pruned once the plants get larger — until those plantings are growing right up against the house, or under decks and eaves.

The biggest problem of all was what Tolmie called “receptive fuel beds.” These included items like patio furniture pads, rats’ nests in firewood stacks, discarded construction lumber and other junk left out in the yard or piled against the lattice-work skirts under decking. All of these could provide places for sparks and brands to land, gain a foothold, and threaten houses and outbuildings that might otherwise have gone unharmed.

“Pete, what are you looking for?” Mary calls from the kitchen and her post beside the scanner. “Didn’t you hear them say Sky Harbor? That’s where Billy and Karen are.”

“Trying to find a topo map of the area. Ah, here! Found it.” Unfolding the map, he makes his way back toward the kitchen. Walking and glancing at the map, he thinks about his older son and daughter-in-law’s place in Sky Harbor.

There are forty to fifty homes in that area, he guesses, most of them clustered near where Sky Harbor Road dead-ends into the South Finegold Day Use Area. The lots are steep — not a good thing in a fire.

Although it is one way in and one way out, Sky Harbor is still a fairly wide, County-maintained road. The tract at its end is served by fire hydrants too, if he remembers right. Now, if Billy and Karen don’t have too many unpruned bushes up against their house, or too many of those receptive fuel beds, they’ll probably be okay...

“Let’s give them a call and see if they’re home,” he says to Mary as he lays out the map on the dining room table. “I’m more worried about Tom and Jen and the rest of their kids — and us, too, if you really want to know.”

“What do you mean? Nothing on the scanner mentioned Twin Ponds, Morgan Canyon, or Gooseberry.”

“I know. But I just remembered something that fire chief said when he did the inspection.”

“Which was?”

“Back in the seventies, a fire started below Valerie Meadows. Prevailing winds funneled it up along Auberry Road, this side of the Tabletops. It swept through what’s now the Granite Creek and White Thorn areas, toward Little Wild Horse Valley and Wellbarn Road. It swept around Corlew Mountain, right across Twin Ponds here. All the way over to Morgan Canyon and the Gooseberry area. In a single afternoon.”

Mary and Pete look at the grandkids. Tom and Jen’s two youngest — Melissa, age four, and Jeremy, age two — are playing in the front room of Grammy and Grampy’s unofficial daycare center. The pre-schoolers seem to have little inkling of what is going on.

“I’m going to call Tom’s place and see if any of their kids or the parents are home,” Mary says. “I think the kids are all back in school, as of last week.”

“I’ll call Billy on the cell phone,” Pete says, “but we’d better be quick. We may have to evacuate.”

Pete walks out the front door, to the spot on their property where he gets the best signal for his cell phone off the Black Mountain and Owens Mountain towers. The signal is still too patchy for his liking, but he gets through to Billy’s number — and his answering machine.

“Hi, you two — this is Dad,” he says. “Looks like that lightning storm left a heckuva mess behind it, huh? Give me a call when you get a chance, either on our landline or cell phone number.” He gives them the numbers, just in case, then adds, “I should be able to get your call. Right now I’m just hauling away from the house anything that’ll burn. I may hose the place down, too, if it looks like we’ll have to evacuate. If we’re not here at the house, you’ll probably still be able to get Mom and me on the cell phone. Love you both. Bye.”

Dragging a patio furniture pad away from the house, Pete looks up and gazes off to the west. Through the smoke-filled sky, the setting sun is a blood red ball.

All episodes were originally published in 2007 as a fire education series in the Mountain Press, the Sanger Herald, the Snowline Tiimes, and their sister publications covering the central California portion of the foothills and Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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