kaspired

A couple from the Netflix series “Disenchantment” by Matt Groening.

Lego versions of Starfire, some Ravens, and Jinx with a generic figure.

Now take a deep breath.

A bit of background first.  During my last couple of years at college, my parents had a house in Northern California.  To be a bit more specific, just to the north-west of Redding.  (BTW, they moved out of this house and into town lots of years ago.)

For the last few weeks it seems as if the entire northern half of California was burning.  Wildfires here, wildfires there, and one of the worse was the Carr Fire.  The Carr Fire started just north-west of Redding.

Carr fire details:www.fire.ca.gov/current_incide…   www.vox.com/energy-and-environ…

I’m sure you can guess where this story is going…

Over the Labor Day Weekend, I drove to Chico to visit some relatives, then two of us drove to Redding for the Tour De Demolition.

There are several dams in the area so I’ll separate the locations by a particular dam.

Let me start with the Shasta Dam.

See all the stuff in the air?  That’s smoke.  And we’re maybe twenty miles away from the fire.

Shasta Dam again, from about a mile away.

We’ve driven to the Keswick dam, which is about ten miles away and we’re still not at the heart of the fire.

This fire was brutal, but weird.  Entire neighborhoods were turned to charcoal, but in the midst of the carnage a house would be standing.  And completely untouched.

There were fatalities.  Moment of silence here, if you please.

After I took that photo, I stepped five feet to the left and saw what he was defending.

Everything was just eliminated.  Even the dirt has been sterilized.

Now things get personal.

The next set of photos are of my sister in laws house.  My brother got married in that house.

And finally, this is as close as we could get to our old house.  The road was closed and impassable. 

See the path that leads to the water?  Follow that and it’ll lead to our driveway.  Also see the scorched trees?  Those were surrounding the house.  Odds are it’s gone.