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Last fire post

• The CDF Incident Report says that things should be mopped up by 8 pm tonight. Yay!
• As of this morning, it's 95% contained with over 12,5000 acres burned.
• There were a few injuries, and a few vacation cabins and outbuildings burned, but no loss of homes or life. Whew.
• So, with that sigh of relief, I can say that it's really darn cool that the Press Democrat (our local daily) included my panorama in their archive of Geysers Fire photos. You can see it there or you can see the full, labeled version here.

I'm offended

"We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
— George W. Bush

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
— Dick Cheney

I don't know which is worse, but I do firmly believe that each sums up the speaker in a nutshell.

Less fire fretting

With tonight's news update about the fire, I'm becoming less freaked out. It's 35% contained with over 12,000 acres burned, and they still don't expect it to be fully contained for another day and a half or so. But at least things are improving, and the weather's helping out.

This map gives you a good grasp of both the terrain (hilly, remote) and why I've been so worried; that small town in the bottom left is us, which means that we were only about 5 miles away. That's waaay too close for my comfort.

No news is no news

For those wondering if silence means that we had to evacuate or something, the answer is no, nothing's up. Here's what I do know:

• The CDF page was last updated at 7 am, and it didn't say a whole lot that was new. Back then, it was still at 10% contained, which doesn't mean much of anything.
• The wind's blowing north, which is away from us. That's good for us (we're south of the fire), but not so much for other people.
• The air quality here is considerably better than yesterday. When I left the office then, my car had a light layer of ash all over it. I'm not seeing any on Tom's car today.
• The big smoke plumes we saw yesterday aren't there today. OTOH, the view to the north is still generally smoky and hazy.
• The most up-to-date news reports I've found are by searching Google News for "geysers fire", although those don't have much new info, either.
• The original 14,000 acres burned estimate was just that, an estimate. At that point, they didn't really know how big an area the fire covered. Last night they figured it out and changed the number to 7500 acres, and at 7 am it was 9264 acres. My guess is that by now, if it's still not contained, it may well be close to that 14,000 acres again.
• I've still heard no estimate for when CDF thinks that it will be fully contained.

I'll update when I know more. Until then, assume that we're fine, so long as the wind doesn't change direction again.

Update, 7:00 pm: CDF updated the page with 6 pm stats, although I tend to doubt that 0 acres burnt between 7 am and 6 pm. Supposedly, the fire is now 15% contained, with full containment not expected until 8 am Wednesday (!). Winds are changing, costs are rising, more people are being brought in to work on it, so I'll continue to keep an eye out.