[null and void]

From an email sent to me by a friend at BART:


I heard this story this morning on the KFOG morning show. A man was
visiting his daughter in the San Bernardino Mountains. They were not yet
required to evacuate, but the fire was moving towards the daughter's home.
They decided to take action. They drove to a nearby store and bought some
chemicals, a pump and some hoses. The daughter has a swimming pool. Their
intent was to hose everything down and also put fire retardant chemicals on
everything that would burn.

When they returned to her neighborhood, the police had barricaded the road
and would not let them in. They snuck around on a nearby trail, carrying
their stuff up the hill behind the houses. Once they got set up, they
banded together with the neighbors on both sides of her house, who had not
evacuated. Together, this team saved 6 homes from the fire, while
everything else in the area burned down.

Afterwards, they were laying in the yard exhausted. The police came and
arrested them because they were not supposed to be there. And now the best
part of the story: The homeowners' insurance company bailed them out!

[lainie]

hehe right on

[WestCoastGal]

Wow, that is quite a story!! Sometimes in these situations you have to defend your ownproperty although in some cases it can be a deadly decision. I don't know what I would do.

[lainie]

actually that sounds dubious. What nearby store has that stuff?

[BurbankKarl]

hmm....

a better plan would have been to foam the house and leave....

[PhilipFreneau]

The host on KFI this morning ridiculed and scolded callers who declared their intent to stay and try to protect their property. What a pompous jerk! I finally tuned him out.

[mo4bush]

That is one of the best stories I have heard! Good job!
Mo4Bush

[Ladypixel]

Update in regards to the western part of the Grand Prix fire:

Currently, it's sitting in the mountains above San Dimas and Glendora, in the area burned by our Curb fire. It's still there, producing smoke which has made the sky here have an eerie grey-yellow shade. However, it's not threatening anything at the moment; it's just lurking.

If the Santa Ana winds come back, we're in deep doo-doo, as the one major canyon which did /not/ get burned in the Curb fire is right below the Grand Prix fire. However, so long as we don't have wind, we don't have fire down here.

There are almost no firefighters deployed up there, except for one team who is just keeping an eye on the fire and making sure it doesn't head southward.

At the moment, the areas of La Verne/San Dimas/Glendora are not in danger, although we're again breathing smoke (this must've been the smoke I started to smell again last night). Yuck. I was so happy to /not/ be smelling smoke yesterday afternoon/early evening, too!