Dodging the Poomacha Fire bullet

We are home.
Wednesday we got the word that the roads were opened to residents and we packed up and headed up the mountain. The road up is very sad. The mountain burned a lot of the Pauma Valley, some lost homes, lost avocado groves and beautiful oaks blackened. But the road UP the mountain is worse. There are whole long stretches of burnt forest and as you get to the top, the fire damage is very bad. Some lost homes along the way. It is heart breaking to see the trees so damaged. There were leaves on them, miraculously, and perhaps they will survive, but it will be several years before it starts to look recovered.
The smoke was pretty hazy, and you could see smoke rising from some of the deeper valleys up the mountainside, and at night these areas still glowed that orange glow that i'll never forget. But when we got to the top of the mountain, the fire had been essentially contained on the south side of the road and almost everything on top seemed to be untouched. Not just untouched, but not too smoky, no ash, just normal. We had no power and our well wasn't working because of it, so we had no water. As Bill lit our oil lamps and, ironically, started a fire in the fire place to warm our house, I went to the rescue center where I was greeted with such kindness. They had everything one could want. All i brought home was two large containers of water, two flashlights, and some apple pie. But, had I wanted it, there was Marsala and rice, baked ham and apples, and some vegetarian lasagne, more cakes and pies, and every conceivable granola and power bar. There was clean underwear, towels, wash clothes, ice, milk, chocolate milk, water, Gatorade. Since we had a grill we brought up some food for the night, but there are those up here that had nothing and this was a welcomed sight.
We emptied the refrigerator of all the spoiled food, and took it to the collection center. Once done, we began cooking our homecoming meal, and enjoyed many a bottle of wine as all of us (including the dogs) bundled up and basked in being home. Suddenly at 9pm the power came on. Since I had left our lights on before we evacuated (in my mind, to help the fire fighters know we were back here) the room became ablaze with light and the fridge and such began their silent humming. We had only planned on coming up for one night, as there was no power or hot water, but this changed out plans considerably. We later found out that the power is not on, the mountain emergency generator is providing power until SDGE can get it repaired, still estimated for the 11th. We came back down the next morning and saw the mountain in the day light. i'll attach a photo or two. We had a meeting downtown to attend. After the meeting we had planned on staying down again, but we were so depressed to leave after having just had a taste of home, so we headed back up the mountain and i've been here since. Today I have to trek down for a rehearsal, but back up this afternoon.

It is fall, the leaves are golden, the sunrise through these golden leaves are unfathomably beautiful. The sky is pure blue and there is not a sign of the fire that is still burning to the north of us. The mountain top has hundreds of firefighters up here, still battling the blaze and attending these hot spots. There is a Santa Ana predicted for this weekend,, and all are on alert. But no sign of it now.

Things feel back to normal. I have some pretty disturbing dreams, but that is about all of the residue for me at this time. And Uli raced out of the car the first night back, sped up the hill and, yes, she got skunked ROYALLY. We knew from her crazy barking up there what had happened, and yes, indeed, it did. We took some of our emergency water, boiled it to get it warm, and made our baking soda and Dawn dish washing liquid stew and had her bath ready for her on the deck, in the dark. Yes, we are back to normal.

Thank you for all of your concerns for us, and the many many kind offers to house or help us out. We were blessed to have a place to go, and that our home and property survived. My heart goes out to those who didn't fare so well.