SWCAMBORNE

NASA sent a drone over the Station Fire and compiled this very cool map showing the extent of the fire:

Want more details?  Go to the NASA site. Your tax dollars at work.

Our neighbors who lost their home in the fire this week are doing better than expected.  I think that this is because they had all three of the elements necessary to survive a tragedy.

They have social capital.  Meaning friends and associates that care about them as people. I had written about how important social capital is to getting old graciously but this fire has taught me how important it is to the normal tragedies of every day life.  Jose and Janice had friends, family and neighbors who came to their aid immediately.

They are responsible people so that they have insurance and reserves in place.

And they have a attitude about life that is well illustrated by what Janice told me yesterday she said to her children “Why does this kind of thing happen to us?  Because we can take it.”   An attitude that includes at least a little bit of what I call the key to happiness: low expectations is essential to surviving the worst things that happen in life.

Life is good.

Every day is a gift.

One of the issues with wildfires is the smoke and ash that gets everywhere. Including in your lungs. What we need is a simple product to detoxify our bodies if we have to breath smoke. That product already exists. Coffee is mostly carbon particles suspended in water. Carbon absorbs toxins and volitles. Therefore drink strong Coffee to improve your health when the air is unhealthy.

The most common adjectives about the Station Fire are that it is scary, destructive, wild, voracious, raging and uncontrolled. These are all true but they contain some hyperbole and not a little anthropomorphism.

The San Gabriels on 8/31 from Kaiser Sunset

I’d like to propose a few others adjectives that we should also be hearing.  The Station fire is: normal, useful, cyclical and natural. We live in a very arid region.  Fires were a natural part of the environmental cycle long before humans arrived here.  Fire experts and environmentalists now agree that suppressing every fire means that fuel will accumulate and when they do finally occur they’ll be bigger and hotter.  Where we live fires will happen in the same way that snow will happen in Buffalo, New York.

The residents who live near the San Gabriel Mountains should see a positive in the Station Fire for three reasons:  First it is happening at the beginning of the fire season when the Santa Ana winds aren’t blowing.  Second we have some of the world best trained, financed and equipped fire fighters working to save us and our structures.  And third this fires, which is doing very little damage to people or property, will make the West San Gabriel Mountains much less likely to have a massive burn for the next ten or twenty years.

A smoke ball above Mt Wilson

My friend who lives in upstate New York called to make sure we were ok.  He asked me “Why would you live in a place that has fires and earthquakes?”  I answered “Why would you live in a place that has winter?”

If you are looking for information on the Station Fire here are a few resources you can try:

My Blog about reopening the Mount Wilson Toll Road has a few pictures and my claim to prescience.

The Altadena Blog has very timely information about the fire

The Mt Wilson Towercam has real-time pictures of the Summit of Mt Wilson

The Altadena Weather cam

And the LA Times site has Maps and Photos that are only a few hours out of date

We feel pretty safe here in Sierra Madre Villa.  The wind is low, the fire is at least five miles away uphill and the fire fighting resources are well organized to save structures.  It is smoky, the sky color is eerie and the noise of the fire plane and helicopters creates a sense of urgency but we are safe.  The television news exacerbates the sense of drama and urgency.  We have friends in La Canada who were evacuated but they are now back home and everything is fine.