#adobe fire

A Burning Ring of Fire?

On June 27, 1965, the Adobe Fire, which burned 508 acres in the Los Padres National Forest, was started by Johnny Cash during a fishing trip with his nephew Damon Fielder.  Today, we are sharing the fire report from our collections of the Los Padres National Forest that details the location of the fire, how it started, how it was suppressed, and the damage it caused.

Although information in the fire report states that a faulty exhaust on Mr. Cash’s vehicle was to blame for the fire, his nephew believed otherwise.  Mr. Fielder’s version of the story was that his uncle started a fire to stay warm and did not notice that it was burning out of control.

In addition to the damage documented in the fire report, 49 of 53 of the forest’s endangered California condors were killed.  Mr. Cash was sued in Federal court for the damages caused in the Adobe Fire and settled for $82,000.

So, California is on fire.

Specifically, and in addition to the fires already burning in SoCal, somewhere around 20 fires have started in the region from Clear Lake, down to highway 37, and out to Fairfield. There is not much in the way of containment right now and things are looking pretty bad. Things are particularly bad in Santa Rosa, where entire neighborhoods were levelled and many commercial structures destroyed.

I myself am at my parents home in Fairfield. I helped make sure they were ready to evacuate and we are ready to go at a moment's notice. Whether or not the house survives pretty much hinges on how the wind blows, and I'm not sure how that's going to go, so we watch and wait.

There's a lot of devastation across the entire region, and many are left homeless, displaced, out of work, injured, etc. This article (http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article177964926.html) has a number of ways to help, but if you do a quick Google search you will find other charities and donation pages for groups working with the fires.

Just an fyi if you are in the East bay...Northgate Christian Fellowship at  2201 Lake Herman Rd Benicia, California is a drop-off point for donations that will be distributed to the evacuation shelters in Solano, Napa, and Sonoma Counties.