Into the Fire

This past weekend was a very stressful and tragic time in our Southern Californian wildfire history. Thankfully, David and I, as well as our home was safe. We are always thankful during the fire season every year that we are urbanites in our living situation and don’t have to worry about the possibility of our home being destroyed in a wildfire. However, many of our videography/clergy/and photography friends are not. Many of them are very much in the outer realm of urban sprawl. They live in some of the prettiest areas, but the most dangerous as well.

This blog is dedicated to them :

The Clergy Network (Yorba Linda) whose entire family is safe-yay!, Honored Occasions (Brea), Jeff (a videographer)(Diamond Bar), Robles Video (Brea), Mike (a videographer)(Brea), Anaheim Hills Golf Club (venue site)(Anaheim Hills), Nixon Library (venue site)(Yorba Linda) And Kelsey’s family (in Brea/Carbon Canyon).

And everyone else-who has been affected…

David and I had a shoot on Saturday morning in Norwalk at the McKenna BMW. We got on our way at around 9am getting onto our Freeway (the 405 by Venice Blvd.) Immediately, since we had known the Sayre Fire was burning, we looked toward the valley. A terrifying gloomy bowl of smoke seemed to be just over the Hollywood Hills layering the San Fernando Valley with ash and smoke. At once David and I said a prayer thanking God that it wasn’t November 22^nd , 2008. We have a wedding where the church is in Valencia and the reception is in the San Fernando Valley right next to Sylmar. As we all know the 5 FWY was closed and the wedding probably would have been canceled.

Next, as we made the interchange from the 405 FWY to the 105 FWY, David and I saw a big plume of white smoke toward Anaheim/Brea Hills. David and I literally at the same time exchange a gasp and said “holy smakers!” under our breath or something to that effect-if you get our drift. We knew another fire had started. By the afternoon when we were still filming, the black smoke enveloped us and the BMWs. Outside the ash was everywhere. When we had our lunch break, there was a TV in the lobby and our worst fears were confirmed. The fire had begun to overtake Orange County. We knew Southern California was now in the midst of another awful fire.

The film shoot was over in the evening. Once we got home, we immediately called our relatives in Brea- to find out they had been asked to evacuate and were able to escape with their documents and important things in their car. Their house was 5 houses from being destroyed. Thanks to the firefighters it was saved. As I also told you, we have heard from our friends at the Clergy Network whose entire family experienced the fire in one way or another, but came out well and with their houses too. They told us the apartment they use to live in was one of the 50 units consumed by the fire.

As our population increases, so does our urban sprawl and the potential for wildfires to come into the backyards of the ones we love. My family loves where they live and couldn’t see it any other way. We on the other hand will take being on a boring paved street in the middle of a dense beach community anytime- even though we miss the deer and bobcats! I guess we will have to be thankful we have the squirrels and raccoons.

And lastly, thank you to our firefighters in LA and Orange County. They did an amazing job. Many people lost many things, but most importantly all of our families are safe and in the end that’s what matters.

This is a video clip of what the guy we were filming that day said about the fire...