East Bay Real Estate 2008 Fire Season Hasn’t Yet Shown Up!

June 20, 2008 was the official date of the start of the California fire season, and Jim Walberg found himself right in the middle of the mess.

“If I told you that 526,707 acres have burned in California since June 20th would you believe me? Well, believe me. Here are some further sobering stats regarding our fire season that is just three weeks old with over $350 million spent so far with a State budget for fighting fires this year at about $100 million! Yikes!!!”

Number of California fires: 1,783 with 332 fires still burning.
Over 20,260 people have been assigned to fight the California fires.
There are 1,641 fire engines in service; 531 fire crews; 331 dozers; 429 water tenders; and, 118 helicopters on duty.

Last Wednesday my wife and I took our daughter down to Santa Barbara City College so she could register for the Fall semester - one of the most beautiful California college campuses we have ever seen. It slopes right down to the Pacific Ocean. While we were there we also assisted our middle son to move from one of his college housing to another one. We anticipated a fun family weekend, with our oldest son driving up from Loyola-Marymount University to join us in the celebration of his 22^nd birthday since we were already in Santa Barbara.

Well, it didn’t work out the way we planned. We left about 5:30AM on Wednesday morning in order to be at SBCC before noon so our daughter could participate with her counselor in organizing her class schedule. As we came down Highway 101 entering Goleta, we noticed a few puffs of smoke trails coming from the coastal mountains with Goleta at their base. In the car we noted that we were sad to see another small fire given there has been over 1,750 California fires since June 20, 2008!!! What started out as a few puffs of smoke on just a few acres of land turned into a State disaster over the next three days! Now, close to 9,000 acres have burned with Governor Schwaszenegger proclaiming a state of emergency in Santa Barbara County as a result of what they are now calling the Gap Fire.

Governor Schwarzenegger said. “California has the best firefighters in the world, and I also want to commend them for their dedication under such difficult circumstances. Thanks to their hard work, we are making progress in containing the more than 1,000 current fires, and through our local, state and federal coordination and resources, we will put these fires out and help our affected communities recover as quickly as possible.” One of the keys to having only a few structured burned in the Gap Fire was the work of homeowners in these Santa Barbara foothills complying with the “100′ Defensible Space law”… keeping burnable debris at least a 100 feet from all sides of your home and property.

So, we were staying at a very nice hotel in Goleta with the sky turning dark during the day as if it was dusk. Ash was raining down on everyone, and the fire burned through several power stations which had all of the electricity in Goleta do down. There were over a 1,000 people evacuated to shelters such as the Goleta High School gym. We were not prepared for being in a hotel with nothing but our cell phones working - not even a candle. I remembered we had an earthquake survival kit in my car. What I didn’t remember is that it was over 15 years old. When I opened it up everything had spoiled or evaporated. So, one of the benefits of our experience was to immediately create a shopping list at Home Depot the next day for five complete emergency kits that would sustain two people for three days in any emergency. I went to Home Depot on Friday morning and put the kits together for each of our three kid’s cars and one each for my wife’s and my car. If you don’t have an emergency kit in your car, put one together today. Obviously, they call them “emergency kits” because you never know when you will need them. We were unprepared. Are you? If not, take care of it this weekend. Until next time…a bit singed and still coughing. (The photos on this posting are from AP News, and SBCC website.)