Kiri, Haille and Marita Need Help - Also an Update from Linda

First of all . . .

Haille, Kiri and Marita can use help at their places making them more fire safe. Haille and his son Max were up at Will and Jo's with all of us working very hard on the Singley Fire last Sunday and Monday. When Guy has been out and about working on the bulldozer at different houses, he has often seen Haille working there, too, clearing brush and helping his neighborhood - getting other people's houses more fire-safe, the ones that are closest to the fires. We're all exhausted, but if you still have energy and if your own place is fairly well squared away, please give Kiri & Haille a call and see what you can do over there. 

I went up to Windsong Ridge at 4:45 and just came down. The stars and moon were bright above me in the sky. I also went up there at 11:00 pm last night and it looked much the same. I can fairly clearly see Durfee's mountain to my west, but none of the ridges to the west of it. However, I don't smell smoke out there. Last night Radical Mountain (to my north) had 3 points of light on it. At first I thought they were fires, but I stood and watched them for a while and finally concluded that they must be lights where people were stationed up on top of the mountain - perhaps MRC people on the road that comes up from Jack Smith Creek on the back side. I'm still not certain that none of the 3 spots was a fire, but they were very tiny spots and there was no movement and no flare-up. Just now when I was up there there was still one point of light, but it was still too dark and I couldn't quite figure whether I was looking at Rad Mt. or at the top of the mountain at Will and Joe's. At any rate, I didn't see any plumes of smoke going up into the clear night sky, no matter which direction I looked.

I haven't written an update from my vantage point for several days because there just hasn't been time to do that, but I thought people on the west side of Greenfield would want to know about some of the fire breaks that have been bulldozed over here. The first one is east of Orr Springs Road below Steve & JoAnn's house. The purpose of that one is to prevent a possible crown fire that could potentially be coming from the forest on Running Springs Ranch from reaching Steve & JoAnn's house, and also to prevent it from getting into the fir forest and woodlands on this side of Greenfield. We found a very narrow place in the forest that connects the western Greenfield forest to the Running Springs forest. Chris came over and dropped several fir trees, Guy bulldozed and Calvin, Christina, Liam, Ben, Aaron & brothers, Steve & JoAnn and someone else cut and dragged the brush far from the forest and the house. That created a clear separation between the two forested areas.

Yesterday, where Windsong Way is on a sidehill and cannot be widened, Guy took the dozer above the road and along the ridgetop (between our driveway and our vineyard) scraping the grass and a few small trees away.

I just went up to the ridge again to see what I can see in daylight. The sun is a big rising red-orange orb. There's only wispy layers of smoke in the Ackerman drainage (the valley to your right for most of the way as you drive from Greenfield to Ukiah) to the south. It's the clearest that I've seen it in a week.

I looked NW toward the No Name Fire and can't see anything but a thick blanket of something - can't tell if it's smoke or fog.

I looked north & NE toward Radical Mt., unfortunately there's clearly a small plume of smoke rising up out of Redwood Creek Canyon in front of the mountain.

That does it for me. Best wishes to all of you and to your homes.

- Linda