Another Close Call
We had another close call last night when a wildfire broke out on San Bruno Mt. at about 7:20pm. While the grass fire that broke out on May 21st burnt 7 acres and was contained within a couple hours, last night’s fire grew to 5-alarm and burnt over 200 acres. It was declared under control at midnight but full containment wasn’t declared until 11am this morning, 16 hours after it started. Cause of the fire is still undetermined.

Our house is about 0.5 to 1 mile from the fire site. We had a clear vantage point of it from our kitchen window and our backyard. Here is a picture I took from the backyard. You can see the fire outlining the mountain ridge.

Fortunately for us and especially for all the people in the surrounding neighborhoods, weather conditions last night favored firefighting efforts. Relative humidity was high and winds were considerably calm. With winds blowing to the east and our house being to the south and west, we were confident we were not in the path of the fire. Actually, RF was more confident than me. I was a bit nervous to be honest. Just one wild gust of wind can blow an ember any which way to spark another fire totally unexpectedly. Thank goodness that didn’t happen.

Here is a SF Chronicle report of this fire and all the other fires in the Bay Area over the weekend:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/BAS011DN5B.DTL&tsp=1