Dad's Home

After reading on the Butte County Sheriff's Department's web site that the area where my father lives had been downgraded from an Evacuation Order ("go now") to a Warning ("get ready to go"), meaning people could come back to their homes, I called Dad, who had indeed gotten home the following evening after spending a week in a hotel in Roseville with his wife. (They have a small dog, and needed to go that far to find a place that would let them bring their dog.) As he's a retired Forest Service ranger, I was not surprised that he bugged out before a reverse-911 evacuation order came. He could see what was going on, and while he has an extensive water system on his property, it would not have been enough had the fire reached his home, which thankfully it did not, although it was a near thing.

( I'll Show You How Close it Was )

I talked with Dad for a while. We're not close, and I haven't seen him in years, but I'm glad that he's safe. They're having to clean up the house, though, albeit not from fire damage. They had stocked up extensively to avoid having to expose themselves to idiots while shopping, and when the power went out for several days, all of the perishable foods perished. While that's a pity — Dad said they had a 50-gallon drum full of spoiled food awaiting disposal — it's relatively small potatoes next to saving their property and the house that he built when he retired from the USFS.