The 'E' Type Forum

By now, many of you have probably seen the wildfires happening in southern California. I live in the city of Thousand Oaks, about an hour's drive from Los Angeles. We were ordered to evacuate just after midnight Friday morning--a few hours after some idiot shot up a local nightclub. In all, 75,000 households were included in the evacuation. I went to work, which was well outside the evacuation zone, but was able to return home. 30-plus others in my hometown were not so lucky, and returned to burned out homes.

For those not familiar with this area, our typical landscape is grass with lots of scrub oak and large oak trees. Eucalyptus trees were planted abundantly in the 1800s for farmers for wind breaks; they also burn very well. Weather conditions for this time of year consist of temperatures between 80F to 100F, very low humidity, and high winds coming off the desert. When these fires get started, they move very quickly and evacuation usually means grabbing a few things before getting the hell out. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that anyone has been seriously injured or killed in our area. What does this have to do with E-Types? Every time we have one of these events, we inevitably hear about the people who couldn't get the old Ferrari, Jaguar, or whatever other classics they had in the garage, but after all is said and done, they're just "stuff." So, while some people lost homes, cars and other things, thanks to the efforts of our first responders we're OK.

Hi Mark..great to hear your ok......you have the right attitude..its just Stuff.....we are very fortunate in the UK we dont have such major events.....all the best.... Steve

Thank you, Steve. Just trying to get the campfire smell out of house now. Fire has moved south into the Malibu area, where it will eventually be stopped by the Pacific Ocean. No wind this morning and the humidity has increased in our immediate area. Took the dog out for her walk and found that this thing had come within 200 yards of my neighborhood, before running out of fuel.

Glad you're untouched, Moe. It's sure been a rough time the past few days. I wish that west of the Mississippi could get some of the rain we've had on the east coast. As of 11 pm yesterday, DC has had 56.43" of precip; normal to date is 34.51" with annual ave. being about 37. We could let you have about 20" of that to help reduce your fire hazard.

We could let you have about 20" of that to help reduce your fire hazard.
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Thanks, Mark. We'll take that 20" over several months, otherwise the mudslides would be a new problem. We really do need some rain this winter. We're actually lucky here; northern California has taken a real flogging with the fires, losing an entire town yesterday, and they will get heavy rains later.

Saw the pictures on the news over here and people driving to escape. Absolutely terrifying. Glad you guys are fine.

A horrible experience for everyone concerned, but so glad to hear you are ok. I hadn't realised much of it was eucalyptus - it expains the spread because of the flashover that gum trees encourage

Thank you, Christopher. In our area the eucalyptus trees remain in small pockets, since most of the farms have been paved over for many years, but they still present a problem. The real issue is the low humidity and high winds, combined with draught conditions. Another wind event is predicted for the next three days, so anyone from the greener part of the world planning a trip to California right now might want to delay their plans.