Well Dick glad your back with us all. Cars & property can be replaced, Life
can not.
Dave
In England.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dick Benjamin" <dickb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 4:44 PM
Subject: IML: We're baaaack! (Very long read, sorry)
> 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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