Humboldt Fire

I'm not sure what I was doing yesterday to have not noticed the huge looming black smoke cloud. I was getting ready to take Karlee to reading at 4 PM and looked out the window for the first time and saw what looked to be the south end of Chico burning. It was a bit strange driving to the California Park area with that huge gathering of smoke right there. As I got closer I could tell it was actually on the other side of Hwy 32 and the wind was definitely blowing southeast. The smoke was certainly deceiving - from my house it looked so much closer. We dropped Karlee off and went to the Galley over off Park Avenue. From that viewpoint you could tell the fire was burning in the canyon going towards the Skyway. After stopping by the Plant Barn to check up on things with my sister (who wasn't there) we decided to go up the Skyway to turn onto Bruce Road and see the fire from there. They had actually closed the Skyway at Bruce Road at that point. So we drove along Bruce and you could see the helicopters dropping the water. You could tell that the Doe Mill area appeared to be out of danger. We came out at Hwy 32 to head back to California Park to pick Karlee up. Kyle and I noticed that the helicopters were dipping into Sierra Lake . We had about 15 minutes until it was time to pick up Karlee so Kyle and I decided to head over and see if we could catch the helicopters coming in for the water. When we got there is was mildly crowded. Kyle and I crossed the street, and this was the moment I regretted. As I was stepping up onto the bridge I misjudged the height and fell flat on my face. Not a good moment for me..... So I now have a skinned knee and bruised wrist. And of course my ego was hurt a little. Good thing I have such a sweet boy! He of course ran back over to help me up and kept asking if I was okay. Fortunately we were quickly distracted by the helicopters coming in. At one point there were 4 helicopters hovering and taking turns getting the water and heading back to the fire. It was pretty awesome to see up close like that. I soon realized the crowd that had gathered was now triple the size. Some had even brought lounge chairs.....? We ended up bringing Karlee back to hopefully get a glimpse as well. But that wasn't the case - after waiting about 10 minutes we realized they had obviously moved on to another water source. On the 11 PM news reports they stated that no structures we involved but the fire had quickly grown to 6000 acres. I hope they get a handle soon. The winds don't seem to be as gusty as yesterday but they are still blowing and that is never good for fire. I'll be looking for updates here.