There is no way I can even remember all the kind things folks have said via
e-mail and phone during our trial by fire of the last two weeks, but I have
to be sure you all know that we appreciate your kind thoughts and prayers.
Obviously they were effective, because the fire came straight for us,
burning the front half (15 acres) of our property with a fire so hot that it
melted all the soft metals and glass, and warped the steel in the cars.
There are puddles of molten metal on the ground under each car. SO, I
lost a few parts cars, and three small buildings where I had parts stored,
but as the fire approached the main buildings, it veered off to the east and
burned some unoccupied land plus a citrus grove, leaving my shop and barn
building untouched, along with the cars in that area. Our home was not
bothered at all.
We were advised to evacuate on Sunday May 2, and that became mandatory on
Monday. In fact, the fire jumped our road as we were driving out, thus
canceling plans to take more cars out (which we had done in the previous 2
fires.) We took our RV and one extra truck to a friends ranch about 3
miles east of here, and thought we'd be safe.
About a hour later, here comes the fire again, on both sides of Hwy. 79. We
were getting in our vehicles to escape further east when another arsonist
set a fire further out on Hwy. 79 (at the Cottonwood school), so we were
trapped with the road impassable in both directions.
There was a strike team of 5 engines and a battalion chief (from San Luis
Obispo!) at our friend's ranch for structure protection at that time. The
police came by and told us to move out NOW, but the fire chief said no - the
road is blocked, we'll have to stay here! We took the fireman's advice -
the police car split out of there and we were told to go into the building
(a cinder block house) and stay low until the fire passed. We had a brief
interlude of near terror, but the fire again swerved away, into the field
and on down the road. Power poles were bursting into flame like roman
candles - the fire was leaping in strides of 100 feet or more. Later, it
came for us again from the southwest, having burnt through the citrus
orchard, east from my property about 3 miles away. On both approaches, it
came within about 200 feet of our refuge, but did no real damage.
The strike team spent the night at the ranch with us (their fire
headquarters at Vail Lake Resort had been burned out). The 4 families
that had stayed there provided the contents of our freezers to an enormous
cookout Monday night - we fed all the fire crews and ourselves with a chef
prepared charcoal fired feast (one of our group is a superb chef). The next
morning, he prepared breakfast burritos for all takers - the fire crews
still talked about it when I saw them a week later!. Of course we knew
there would be no power for at least a week, so there was no point in saving
anything perishable.
We did not sleep at all Monday night - and of course my wife and I were very
concerned that our place was totally wiped out. On Tuesday morning, I
mentioned our fears to the battalion chief, who was still with us, and he
invited me to ride with him on his morning patrol (we were not otherwise
able to use the roads). So I got to see the whole situation as it existed
at that time, including the fact that the fire had made a 90 degree turn at
the back of my shop building, and totally avoided all our important
buildings and possessions. Of course this wasn't just happenstance, there
had been engines stationed at all our buildings and our home, and while they
weren't able to save some of them, they did save the important stuff. One
engineer told me he looked in the window of my shop and saw the 47 Packard
limousine in there, and told his guys to protect that building as if it were
a residence!
I was able to see that all the important stuff was OK, and that there was a
steady parade of fire trucks and dozers still working on my place, and
taking water from my "hydrant". The last flames were extinguished
Wednesday evening, although we still had smoking stumps etc. until Saturday.
We were allowed to return to our property Friday, and power was restored
Saturday morning. Our phone lines were repaired just yesterday afternoon,
thus this message.
I will be posting a few pictures in a day or so, I'll list the URLs here
when I get them up.
So thanks again to you all, we've survived another one!
Dick and Nancy Benjamin.
Newly named "Black Rocks Ranch"!
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