West Coast Frisbees: Cocos Fire

On May 14th, we had a pretty major scare at our house. We love living in San Diego - the weather is near perfect and we're close to the beach and we just love it. We don't have to deal with harsh winters, or a lot of rainfall, or tornadoes, or hurricanes. We do, however, contend with earthquakes and fires. And because we don't get near enough rain, there is "fire season" every year. There were big fires in the San Diego area in 2003 and 2007 I believe. Our friends were evacuated from their condo in Carmel Valley in 2009 and stayed with us for a night. But it still never really hit home until a few weeks ago.

"Fire season" had started early and there was a big fire burning in the San Bernardo area for a couple of days. That is far from our house, but right next to the freeway we take to get home. Winds were shifting and reports of new fires were starting (Carlsbad, etc) so Jim and I both decided to head home so we wouldn't be all spread around San Diego. By the time we got home, new fires were starting what felt like all over the place and when we heard about a new fire at "the 78 and Twin Oaks Valley Road" - our exit - we decided it was time to pack up some stuff into our cars just in case.

I don't even know what I was doing honestly. My mind couldn't really focus. I was throwing random clothes into bags and then going around trying to figure out what was valuable/irreplaceable. At first, it feels like everything. But then you quickly realize it's not that much. We had all of our favorite photo albums and any pictures that weren't digital, paintings, our computer and hard drive, important documents, and then a few items like my Mom's wedding dress turned Baptism gown, my Grandma's jewelry, handmade cards from Ben, and items Jim's parents had sent us that were his as a boy. Besides that, all that REALLY mattered were us and the boys. :)

What became known as the Cocos Fire was huge and scary, but luckily stayed about 5 miles from us, on the other side of the freeway. We were never evacuated, but we had a front-row view from our hill. It was amazing to watch the rescue helicopters and planes dumping water and retardant onto the flames. We literally watched them savings houses. It was a nerve-wracking couple of days, so we actually did get out of town and went to my parent's house for a few days to get away from any smoke and smell and just the stress. Hopefully that's the last of our experiences with San Diego wildfire season.

Looks deceptively close from the front of our house