Fires!

Woke up to a wildfire to our east - turns out some tweaker campers had a bonfire the night before and surprise! didn't monitor it properly and it got out of control. About 5 acres went up before they started getting it under control.  This photo is from about 8:30am.

 That was motivation for me to re-evaluate our fire safety (which we already think about a lot) and I decided to assess all the flammable stuff in my tool shed.  I figure if we have to evacuate, I will take any gas and diesel with me, but the old chemicals need not be a bomb waiting to go off.  

I gathered up all the stuff and laid it out:  

 Then I dug a hole deep enough and big enough for all of it, and am now storing all that in the hole... except for the white milk crate, which has all the really handy stuff.  The hole has space for the crate, so if we evacuate, all I have to do is throw the crate in the hole, grab the gas and diesel, and we're ready to go. 

Also, I think it would be just as easy to take the 3 small propane tanks with me rather than leave them to blow up as well. In fact, I'm going to move the 2 extra near my other fuels today. 

The second wildfire was smaller, but closer, and to the west.  Notice here that the smoke is (again, luckily) blowing away from us, which seems to indicate that the fire wouldn't come towards us too quickly.  Still, this is really close.  from our place, bushwhacking through the woods, I could walk to this fire in about 40 minutes. 

 Further motivated, I cleaned up the west patio of dry leaves, and trimmed up the trees to the north of the patio. Both clipping away from the house, and cleaning up around their bases. 

 Then, after sweeping the roof (which didn't have too much crap on it) I raked all the redwood needles and the few dry leaves away from the north of the house as well. Now that's a nice bare dirt area.