September 20, 2014

I slept HARD and LLLOONNGGG. Getting up at 5:13 and a stress filled day wore me out, so I slept until 10.  The boys, however, were long since up (is that a saying?  Seems like it is, but I am usually off with sayings).  I checked out the fire, which grew to over 80,000 acres.  I read buildings were down, which corroborated with what I had heard, but there is still no verification.

As a solid breakfast, I made the boys 2 ½ pounds of bacon and some eggs.   Man, I don’t like bacon.   The smell permeates the house for ever, and I swear I got a massive headache from it (though, on second thought, it could also be from this down-blanket of smoke which is hanging low).  I was lucky enough to get contacted by Micaela, whom I worked with at the Sand Fire.  She’s been there for 4 days and needed help.   The boys were heading down to get some school community hours at the OktoberFest in Placerville, so I soon managed to get showered.  The problem here is my glass door screen, which is (obviously) quite see-through and my inability to close it whilst I’m running around the house – often sans clothing.  Someday I’ll run up to the door to shut it and someone will walk up at the same time.  I doubt this will be a good thing.  

On the list for the fire camp, the top two things needed were chapsticks and long socks.  Many of these firefighters have been away from home for months at a time.  Yet, of course, my attempts at typing “long socks”  kept  turning to “long dicks”. Nice.  Even my typing is concerned about my sex life: Freudian slips á la qwerty keyboard.  I headed down to the Dollar store..saw VLAT circling… and spent over $60 clearing out most of their Carmex chapstick and got deodorants, razors, shaving cream, candy and some flimsy socks.  Headed to Walmart and ran into beautiful Shawna, who helped me with the manager.  Walmart ended up donating another $50 worth of socks.  I headed to camp and the kind officers escorted me right in to Micaela – the toothbrush girl.  She was just setting up and so we began sorting things for the firefighters – within minutes we were completely out of the bandanas she had gotten.  After about an hour, I headed back to the dollar store to get more items and ended up spending another $100.  Yikes.  This is getting very expensive.  <don't even have a teacher's salary>

Back at camp, the head of CalFire (I believe) were not happy that we were in there, and watched us for a while before they deemed us “safe” to be around the crews.  What amazes me is that despite all the money going to such events, there really isn’t a way for firefighters to get little items they may run out of or have forgotten.  They are lucky here, we are right next to Raley’s, but usually they are out in the middle of nowhere.  Micaela’s going to see about changing that.  Maybe I can be the fire camp therapist.  <grin>  Micaela and I headed into the chow line while Ebony (her sister) kept an eye on the stand.  Wow…It was an amazing thing – so much food.  We were also nicely surprised by a lightening and then a downpour.  Fortunately, we had two young, strong gentlemen who helped us move everything under the easy-up.  We started packing up for the day, but shall be back tomorrow. Apparently I have an ability to “move items”, even if they think they don’t need them  <smile>   Ahhh, what a wonderful way to help.

I spoke to a veteran firefighter outside Raley’s,  noticed the Incident Report map up inside and got the boys (Michael is spending the night again) some food they requested.  When I got home, I was surprised to see a kickass fort which is more like a 3 bedroom tent inside my living room, with flat screen, tv, lamp, 2 fans, and sleeping/chilaxing areas. Wow.  I never had such a cool fort.  They even have resting areas for the dogs.  The lightening/thunderstorm continues…a nice thing, but lightening hit close enough to a fire engine that it shut it off and now they need mechanics before they can drive it back to base camp.  This fire….  Over 82,000 acres burned, firefighters injured, structures lost (assessment should be completed tomorrow, they say.  I think these winds and the lightening will make it even worse.  It has been a very unpredictable fire, indeed.  Glad North Tahoe is safe, though, due to granite. For anyone needing info - (530) 647-5218 (King Fire Information Line), and if you can, pick up a pair of long, thick socks (black was preferred), chapsticks, deodorant, shampoo/conditioner, nail clippers, bandanas, earplugs, hand sanitizer, wipes (Wet Ones, little pack), floss-picks, rich lotions, sunscreen and anything else you can think of which is helpful when you are away from home for an extended period of time.  Get in touch with me and I'll meet you to pick it up. You have NO idea how grateful the FFs are - and we heard time and time again how they are amazed with this community (they are from all over the United States).

 Pictures:  Zuni Hotshots and me in the EDC base camp; Pictures inside the dining hall so FFs and crew can see them; A very "sensitive" firefighter from Reno(he needed a hug).  What great people I met tonight; the incident map of the fire; Micaela and Ebony with all the items for FFs.