Looks like no work on Monday...

[Mrs. Colleen]

I hear Goleta has made national news but in case you have not heard...

http://www.ksby.com/Global/story.asp?S=8623033

On Tuesday night my roommate came home and told us about a wildfire that had just started in the mountains above us. This is what it looked like from the back of our garage Tuesday night...



Wednesday it was up to 300 acres...my husband did not work on Wednesday so he was able to take these pictures from the same spot as the one above...









Wednesday night our power and water were out for about 4 or 5 hours. With nothing else to do everyone was driving and walking around. We were suppose to leave town but decided to stay an extra night just to see how things were looking over night.

These pictures were taken at about 6:00pm on Wednesday night less than a mile up the road from us...









These were later that night...





This picture is not that great but you can get a sense of how the fire is spread all along the mountains. All the little orange dots are flames. And it spreads out past the picture.



We decided to take our little vacation anyway so we are not in Goleta right now. We have been following the news updates and our roommate has been updating us as well.

There was an mandatory evacuation for some houses north of us but they were lifted. Our house is a few miles south of the fires still so we are in no danger...and our roommate agreed to collect the cats if anything changed.

I am so happy that our house is far enough away that we are not worried but the fire has spread over to where I work. The preschool is in the hills a bit and is under evacuation warning. The director of the school sent out an email saying that we will most likely be closed. It is always fun to have an extra day or two of vacation...but not under these circumstanses.

As far as I know no houses have been harmed but because it is so close we are number 1 on California's fire priority. They have been pulling fire fighters away from other wildfires to help in Goleta.

I have never experienced anything like this (even though people seem to think all of CA burns every year ) and I know this is something I will never forget. It is going to be weird seeing black mountains.