King Fire

The King fire continues to be uppermost in the minds of all of us hill folk.  The photos I've posted have been taken from the same vantage point on my deck at about the same time every day.  Bad enough when this monster was gobbling up un- or sparsely inhabited acreage toward the northeast, it was scary to see yesterday that the direction had shifted to the west (dark smoke on the left).  It's headed toward Pollock Pines and possibly Camino.  As of 10:30 last night, the fire had burned 12,780 acres, still definitely out of control.  Hwy. 50 has been closed.  Due to the excellent efforts of the many, many firefighters on the ground and in the air, so far no structures have burned.

Camille was again called out to work with Animal Rescue.  Honey is staying with Debbie K.  Cam was on the road, headed back to get her animals tucked in and to pack up sleeping gear.  She was to be on duty at the evacuation center in Placerville all night last night.  Horses and cattle would be checked every couple of hours.  Poor goats, the throw-away animals, had to be housed elsewhere as the fairgrounds had no stalls or corrals suitable for these escape artists.  It must sound like Noah's ark, what with the chickens, turkeys, and pheasants(!) yelling at the top of their lungs.  Animal Control has charge of dogs and cats.

My own home front is a little more secure now.  Dave and Clay showed up before I headed to the barn and went to work right away replacing two support posts under the deck and were done shortly after I got back to the house.  It really helps when the supervisor knows what he's doing, and Dave is the go-to guy in the family when it comes to construction.  When I went to sign off on the work, I had to laugh.  Dave had told me to "stay off that corner," so I'd carefully avoided "that corner."  When I saw which posts he and Clay had removed, they weren't from "that corner."  The repairs were made directly under the area where I had been blithely walking and watering plants, etc.  Ignorance is bliss.  The guys headed back down the hill before I could feed them lunch.  So grateful for their help, I felt bad that they went away with empty bellies.

Sunset last night was beautiful.  However, it was scary because those aren't dark clouds drifting across the sun and valley, it is smoke.

UPDATE:  6:45 a.m.  Fire has burned 18,544 acres.  Burning trees falling across Hwy. 50.  Oh crum.