BwD's Totally Excellent Adventure

Armed with a pick-up bed full of heavy-duty gardening tools and a U.S. Forest Service Basic Wildland Firefighting S130, S190 certificate, headed out to the Steele Canyon area in search of adventure. When we got to the intersection of Jamacha and SR-94, though, let's just say that the DOJ officer who was directing traffic to the front lines was less than impressed with our equipment, ambition and paper credentials.

We were sent unceremoniously packing to a Target shopping mall that had been set up as a evacuation center. The following are some photos to what turned out to be an outstanding if not-quite-as-adventerous-as-hoped afternoon.

(at right: hordes of completely unsupervised U.S. citizens feeding, clothing and comforting the less-fortunate. These were our people for the afternoon. Brother and sister, Angelo and Diane, unprompted except by their own spirit, set up the canopies at 10 in the morning at the entrance to a Target. Target said no problem. Next thing you know, people were bringing supplies here. Even the Red Cross and Salvation Army rolled up and dropped off stuff. Subway donated sandwiches and KFC made 2 separate drops of hot meals. All it took was two people. And without any org chart, wiring diagram, Lean Sigma 6 or new employee indoctrination program the whole operation ran efficiently and joyfully. We're not exactly sure how many of the approx. 15 volunteers who were there while we were, actually knew Angelo or Diane.)

(the man in the middle with the white tee is pastor Danny Contreras of El Cajon Apostolic Church. They were hosting evacuees from Ramona on the church ground and we brought them water, food and clothing from the Target HQ. We asked Danny what exactly were Apostolics. He said they were akin to Pentecostals... "..we're the holy-rollers, brother" he said with a chuckle. Pentacostals....? hmmmm.... snake handlers, perhaps. "Hey, Danny. You guys do snake handling? You handle snakes and we guarantee you we'll be back here on Sunday". Danny laughed a deep laugh and assured us that they left the snakes for other folks. Shoot.)

("care buckets" at right. Water, towlettes, health bars, toothpaste, tooth brush, etc. I asked which agency dropped these off. No agency, replied Diane, just some random dude in a pick-up that stopped by a few hours earlier)

(Steve Gonzalez in the yellow jacket of the CDF out of Santa Clara. He was passing out updates (SITREPs) on the fire perimeter and locations that had been re-opened. Good guy. The Substitute referenced it in a comment but he did explain to me why the tankers don't go up when the winds are over 30-35 mph. Its not necessarily for the safety of the plane but because there is no guarantee the retardant will hit its target in those high winds. Steve explained that they had implemented many lessons-learned from the Cedars Fire because they (CDF) "took a beating" PR-wise. We asked about his new boss. He just smiled and said, yes, it was good to have an actual fire-fighter at the top (instead of a forestry major from Berkeley - our perceived inference). We thanked him and told him the lessons-learned were making a difference).

(Sunset at the "campground"). Folks, if you have a chance in the evening after work or on the weekend, please get out there and do what you can... even if its only for an hour or so. One woman who was evacuated back in '03 and again now, said she was from the East Coast and claimed something like this would've never happened back there. "I LOVE San Diego. There isn't anything these people would not do for you".

The unfortunate aspect of this is that we ARE getting too good at this sort of thing and all signs point to these fire disasters, for a number of reasons, being the rule rather than the exceptional occurrence every 4-5 years or so. All in all, though, not a bad day.

"America is great because America is good." Democracy In America - Alexis de Tocqueville