A little change from the ordinary -- actually a large change. For the first time I had to cancel our 12 & Zen gathering this month. One of those out-of-my-control situations in the form of an outbreak of several wildfires burning nearby. Briefly, here is our story:
October 16, 2017
Dear Friends and Family,
As you well know, we’ve had several fires burning in Sonoma
County [which has turned out to be the most devastating fires in California’s
history]. The fire that threatened our home was the Tubbs Fire.
We are safe and all of the homes on our street have been
untouched; but we have more than twenty friends who have lost everything.
The hillsides were hidden by the smoke. We heard propane tanks | exploding. |
Walking down our street I met a neighbor who was evacuating. We quickly collected some important papers, the computer’s external hard
drive, clothes, photo albums and such and put
them in our camper van. We drove to nearby Oliver’s Market and waited until daylight.
At daybreak we returned home. I saw some neighbors on top of
their roof and I joined them.
About 10AM we heard our area of town had been put on a
mandatory evacuation order. Time to
leave.
![]() |
The arrow shows where our home is. |
Incredible how fast this fire spread from the town of
Calistoga, 10 +/- miles away to Santa Rosa.
Even the freeway Highway 101 failed as a firebreak. The fire jumped the
freeway and totally destroyed Coffee Park, hundreds of homes gone.
The winds, winds, winds.
The closest the fire came to our street was about a block away. Into the van we went and drove to (son) Matt and
Susan’s home in San Rafael. It was so
fortunate to have such a wonderful “evacuation center”. And there we stayed,
eyes glued to the TV news and online maps and all.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgte1K04SIhRCjTGNXsKqo7NxzruHDaGEiasQl9NVgAw9p2_QEXzwAZjkwT5FvzwsxXb5rCvJMyOSSKcSNhN9G01Uhq3FqoJAfM4TUZ9-ZRUgYXlosWyBhcukiw-wD6o3xHi2HT2cFt29k/s320/Wind+Conditions.jpg)
The south part of Nuns Fire was threatening the town of
Sonoma.
This fire to the right is the Atlas Fire in Napa
County. All-in-all I think these fires
have burned somewhere around 150,000 acres and over 6000 homes lost. About 40 people have died from these fires.
On Thursday we decided to drive up to see how things were in
the neighborhood. Matt kindly drove us
up.
We took advantage of this and retrieved our two other cars,
parking my car in the Oliver’s Parking lot and driving Beth’s back down to San
Rafael.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXoV6eblHbNA18vUBaAeAk49s7dDQJ8yofiE2D_Rri-AR8KvIheq9oAK5N_8AfZ_0cOR-WAcC_lJjF6nnzX7YtLgjOyNuc8FOkwHT_Z16uxf67wSRPIqg1NSY24kNVnIOELXCLHv3xdG4/s320/fire+map.jpg)
The ferocity and losses from this wildfire have been matched
by the generosity and selflessness of first responders and regular citizens
countywide. Wonderful to witness this!
Bill (and Beth)
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