Auburn 49 Fire, August 30, 2009

I was playing GTA IV Sunday afternoon when I saw a massive wall of smoke through the parlor window. Great billowing thick dark gray smoke in the center churning up looming on the horizon. It looked like it was just past the ridge north of us, across I80 up toward the new Home Depot on 49.

Sharon, get the camera and take a picture out the front door.

3:55 PM A short time later we received a robocall to evacuate our house. We started packing by collecting the important papers, irreplaceable family pictures, et cetera. Packed clothes for a few days stay and backed up the computers. Planned on taking the computers/drives with us in both cars.

4:01 PM

4:01 PM, click to see the air support.

Problem, where to go? There are a few friends we know would welcome us but the two cats would be an issue (allergies/dogs)?

With most of our stuff collected and before we started loading the cars we received a follow up call rescinding the evacuation order.

Last year there was a lot of smoke in the air from massive wildfires but we never felt threatened. Remember the "fog" the morning that Legacy was here for their house concert (pictures)?

Check out this collection of aftermath photographs taken by the community.

We found the yubanet.com was an excellent source of fire information. It seems that the local radio station KVMR gets their information from yubanet.com, in fact the person who runs the fire service at yubanet.com called into KVMR to give regular authoritative updates on the emergency. Specifically, we followed http://yubanet.com/nevada/Rock_Creek_Aurn.php on Sunday for our news (Are we really going to evacuate and possibly lose the house?).

The next day, highway 49 was partially open, the Governator declared a disaster area during his site visit, and my dojo (just across the street) was open for training :). The fire's name changed from the 'Rock Creek Auburn Fire' to the '49 Fire'.

This map shows the area engulfed by the 49 Fire. Click on the picture to enlarge and read.