Speechless Sunday ~ FIRE!
It was a scary Saturday afternoon in Santee! Thank you to the Santee Fire Department for their quick response!
With tempratures in the 100's in Santee yesterday afternoon, along with little humidity and a slight breeze, set the perfect conditions for wildfire. Not even a quarter mile from my house, our son called and asked how close the fire was to our house. We had heard the engines and the sirens, but we hear them often since we are not far from the station. We opened our garage door to a sky full of black smoke directly in front of us!
The fire started around 4:00 p.m.. The Santee Fire Department had the assistance of Cal Fire along with 4 helicopters and 2 air tankers that were using water from Santee Lakesto help control the blaze. 3 homes were evacuated. Fortunately no structures were damaged. There were some fences that were damaged, and homeowners in the area were thankful for the firebreak along the back of their property! There were 2 injuries; one person suffered from smoke inhalation and a fire fighter was slightly injured. 40 acres were burned and the cause of the fire is unknown at this time.
We stayed close to home to ensure the wind didn't shift.All of our neighbors were out, up on their roof tops to make sure it didn't start heading in our direction! It was incredible to watch how quickly it climbed the hill. The helicopters were in constant motion; Santee Lakes is a stones throw to where the fire was, so they were able to pick up water and drop in record time. At one point one flew directly over our head and we were sprinkled with water!
The air tankers did a few massive drops and were gone. The fire was controlled around 8:30 last night. This fire brought back many bad memories from the Cedar fires from 2003. Obviously this fire was no where near the catastrophe those fires caused, but with the dry brush and weather conditions, it was a scary thought!
Thank you Santee Fire Department and Cal Fire for getting this thing under control so quickly. It was good to see the immediate and constant response to this thing before it could get out of control!
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