The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

MojoJim, you are right... entirely too close! I was pretty nervous, but picking helped calm us down a bit.
We are leaving the vehicles loaded up today in case the wind changes. We aren't totally out of the woods yet. Yes, the Saturn is packed to the gills, and I still don't have room for all the guitars and amps. You are right... if we bail out, we will have to head down towards Albuquerque. There is only one way out from here.

I don't know if my place is all that much safer, Bb, but you are welcome to stash yourselves and your gear here, if you have to get out of Dodge. I could help haul some your gear to safer places, also.

I'm following it on http://nmfireinfo.wordpress.com/ and keep my fingers crossed...

Well, I've got a bunch of my guitars and amps and other stuff stashed of DB's place. We had to evacuate last night (in the middle of our gig ). Miriam stayed up at DB's with the dogs, I stayed with a friend down canyon because of the smoke. Gonna see If I can get into our area today, and see if we still have a house. Couldn't go to work today... the road is closed and Los Alamos is evacuated. Makes it hard to pick up my paycheck.

"then we sat around and picked guitars while waiting for evacuation calls."

Bb ..................Dude .................you are one Cool Cookie !!

That is a very scary Picture you've posted ..... real glad the wind is on your side today !!

Still doing a rain dance though !!

All fingers crossed - hope you have a good fire insurance...
How can you play guitar in such a situation???

Well, we still have a house. We are going to stay here tonight, but are keeping the cars loaded up just in case. The fire is still mostly on the far side of the mountain from us... the fire that I can see on our side of the ridge is being worked by the firefighters to create a barrier to (hopefully) protect the homes in our valley.
Had to bail on our gig last night to rush up here and evacuate the dogs (couldn't find the cat). Got back down to the bar around 10:30 or so and played the rest of the gig. All of us were a little preoccupied... don't know how the recording is going to sound. I had so much stuff in my car that I had to leave the amp and guitars I was playing at the bar. Fortunately I know they will be safe there.
Thanks for all the good wishes and support, fellers, we are lucky to have good friends like DB and his wife, Becca, and others to help out.

Blindboy wrote:Well, we still have a house.

Good to hear - will continue to keep all fingers crossed. Good luck. Nice to see you've got such a great bunch of friends.

Best of luck dealing with everything! Part of my day job is as a member of one of the incident command teams that manages large scale forest fires in Canada's national parks... they can be pretty scary when you're up close and personal.

That's way too close for comfort, BB. I'm like MoJoJim, I would be taking a little vacation to the flat country about now. But... Very glad that you "Dodged the bullet" as you said. I'm sure it is not possible to pack up everything... Some tough choices would have to be made.

Here's to wishing you some rain in the very near future.

Thanks guys...
Well, the fire is over 90,000 acres now, but still not directly threatening us. The winds are strong and shifting unpredictably, though, so we are still staying ready to evacuate. I can't get to work, so I am working around the property, raking pine needles and trimming trees. Can't hurt...

Apologies for my twisted sense of humour in advance, but that sounds like something out of a cartoon to me, you just get the garden looking nice and the trees nicely pruned and the fires comes and frazzles them all. Seriously though, still got our fingers crossed and hoping it stays away, big thumbs up for the fire fighters, must be one hell of a task.

MikeJackal wrote:Apologies for my twisted sense of humour in advance, but that sounds like something out of a cartoon to me, you just get the garden looking nice and the trees nicely pruned and the fires comes and frazzles them all

That does sound pretty funny. What I am actually doing is trying to remove fuel, in case embers start blowing my way.

MikeJackal wrote:big thumbs up for the fire fighters, must be one hell of a task.

Yessir, that's a hard job!

If anyone is interested, here is a link to a fire information site.
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/2385/
If you zoom in on the map, and look due west of the ignition point (the little flame at the west end of the big red blob), you can see a little maze of roads... one of these is Forest Rd 134. Coming off of FR 134 is a little road that runs north and south, and looks like a "J". That is my road. (if you click on 'hybrid' on the map, it is actually possible to zoom in and see our house) We are less than two miles from the fireline. (and the wind has just shifted from the east and picked up )

Hoping the wind shifts unpedictably in all the directions that are away from you - I don't knw how you manage to sound so calm when it's all been going for over a week now.

I'll try and keep the fingers double crossed for you - good luck. Stay strong.

Washed my car today, but I think it only rained up here. I ain't very religious but I'm sure prayin' for you folks!

In wildland/urban interface fires a lot of buildings are lost not due to direct flame from the fire front but due to airborne burning embers - so if you've got time, I'd be patching cracks, gaps in siding, loose shingles, anything where little burning bits could get lodged and burn. That and trimming back any vegetation and making sure the lawn is well watered can't hurt either!

LeftyCanuck wrote:In wildland/urban interface fires a lot of buildings are lost not due to direct flame from the fire front but due to airborne burning embers - so if you've got time, I'd be patching cracks, gaps in siding, loose shingles, anything where little burning bits could get lodged and burn. That and trimming back any vegetation and making sure the lawn is well watered can't hurt either!

Good advice, that's why I've been raking up needles around the house and studio. Fortunately the roof on the house, and the one on the studio are metal. The garage is shingle, but in good shape. All of our buildings are in good shape, I just need to get combustible material (pine needles, dead grass, etc...) away from them.

Hopefully things are still OK, or at keast no worse. It looks as if its being contained from the info on the link that Blindboy posted, but it's difficult to know for sure. The scale of the firefighting force is mind-boggling - nearly 2000 personnel, 18 helicopters, 72 Engines, 8 Dozers .... One huge operation. Fingers still crossed for you Blindboy.

Thanks VB... Things are looking up in my neighborhood. There have been fire trucks and crews driving around and scouting, and we just got an hour or so of good rain today (still raining, as a matter of fact )
Perhaps I will be able to go back to work next week. Missing a week of work is going to hurt my finances badly. Still don't know when they will open the road from here to Los Alamos. Going around will take me more than two hours. I may have to move over there until the road is open. (NOT my preferred option!)