Local wildfire prompts evacuations

I love in the Owens valley, and about 30 mins from the gateway to Yosemite on the eastern side of the sierras.

An area about fifteen miles or so north of me caught fire yesterday. People were evacuated from their homes as the prevailing winds spread the fire in the valley of Paradise and Swall Meadows. I took the kids to the restaurant where my wife works and spoke to a few people who were evacuated. Unfortunately the area is hard to get to, so the fire just kept burning. From my house I could see the orange glow from the fire well into the evening. With another fire farther north of us, the response teams were stretched pretty thin.

Luckily the clouds opened up some time in the night, which helped a bit. As of this morning the fire has grown to cover 7,000 acres with an unconfirmed 20 homes gone. Last night I was told that all of Swall Meadows is gone.

With such a dry winter this year I imagine this is only the beginning of what will be a crazy fire season.


Going to take some supplies and food to the shelter today for the affected families.

I don't know how to upload pics into this post, but I have a few. Help?

Stay safe! My thoughts and prayers are with the people from that area.

a reply to: denybedoomed

I saw that 40 structures (homes!) were burnt. Terrible! How is the community coping?

Any news on how it started?

Thank God for the rain. Snow would have been better, but we'll take the rain.

I have always loved driving 395 and remember your area.

High winds blew over a utility pole on the talbot ranch.

The community is pretty shocked, but in two days have donated more than $30,000. That's what I like about this town, they all came together.

It's a shame. Something like 10 square miles burned. It was pretty crazy. But this valley was built to burn, and with how dry it's been, it's gonna be an awful fire season. I remember the rim fire in Yosemite, the whole valley was smoky for a month, like blade runner smoky.

a reply to: desert

Hey, deny! Thanks for the info.

Yeah, I read this morning that 75-95 mph winds were blowing at the time. If a utility pole blows down in an urban/suburban area, it will usually not cause major fire. But in a rural area in the dry West, the same type of incident causes wildfires. And in these "tinder dry" drought years, one spark can easily start a wildfire.

And even if you allow for a defensible space around your structure(s), with winds like these sparks fly and land inside the defensible space, looking for anything to feed off. As much as I love wood shingles, when we re-roofed we went with composite.

I feel so badly for all those who lost their homes. My thoughts and prayers for your community.

Yeah, a few years ago the fire down in big pine jumped the highway the winds were so bad. I mean a divided two lane highway.

Fortunately, if you can afford to live in Swall meadows, you can afford to rebuild.


a reply to: desert