Summit Fire

I thought I better address this fire since we've had lots of questions and concern from those a little familiar with the area but not really here. Last Thurs. I got a call at 7:30 am, from my friend RuthAnn, asking if we were okay. That's the first I knew we were fairly close to a wildfire in the Santa Cruz mountains. Tom, the son of a State of CA fire chief knew immediately that we should get anything irreplaceable out of here. We packed up his guitars, my jewelry, our pictures and important papers and took them to Aimee & Glen's apartment for safe keeping (along with a couple of suitcases of clothes. Since they are house sitting for Glen's parents they even offered us their bed. I was a little nervous about coming home that night since Tom was in Carmel at the opening night of Camelot (he's Sir Dinadan.) We could see tons of smoke at the ridge of the mountains but the wind was blowing SW so we couldn't even smell it. Looking at the satellite on the computer we watched the smoke blow all the way to San Diego but not towards our house. From our house we couldn't even see smoke since we are so close to the hill. This has been a huge battle for Cal Fire and all the mutual aid firefighters (3,000 +) and they have done a great job. The first two days the wind gusts were 40-50 miles per hour. That's what made things so difficult and caused the fire to get so out-of-control. They finally got it 20% contained on Friday night. As of 7 pm this evening it is 80% contained and they are planning for full containment by 6 pm tomorrow (Tues.) We have only smelled smoke this morning and yesterday morning a little bit. The wind has blown in our favor and we are grateful. We have had continual helicopters flying over our house carrying buckets of water. The wind changed to blow north on Friday and even Bob & Cath in El Cerrito could smell the smoke. San Jose got their share too. Morgan Hill was covered in a blanket of smoke all weekend. Gilroy just got real lucky. As soon as they announce total containment we will retrieve our stuff from Aimee & Glen's and bring it home. Thanks for all of your concern. We are okay and glad that 2 or 3 miles away can be plenty far enough with the right wind!