Smoke up from Texas!

[ndoghouse]

After a great weekend on the Llano river flint knapping with some buddies I came home and unloaded and got settled in for the eve. My wife pointed to the sky and asked me if I seen that yet?

Uhh! Well no. What the heck? Looks kinda far away. Yall might have heard me mention a fire a time or two and that my house burned down a few years ago and just finished building another one. Well you could imagine one being nervous about the view. This is what I saw yesterday. Winds were coming from the North so fire was being blown the other way. No news reports or anything as of now. Need a better look.

OK heres the drone...uh i mean dome view. Looks pretty far away. I wont worry about it till tomorrow. I did pack up my Khukris in case I had to evacuate. Priorities you know!

Here is the view the next morning out the living room window. Wind has reversed direction and is headed straight our way. Its ten miles away so still got time.

Perfectly clear day except for the smoke. Its only a few miles away at this time so I suspect we will be evacuated in the morning if its not contained by then. They wont do much now because its night time and they pretty much gotta let it burn. They say its 10% contained which aint good. Three more miles and it will be at my doorstep. We are on edge tonight for sure. The sky is lit up orange and we are awaiting evacuation orders. I built my dome to sustain at least four hours of continuous burn and there is not that much fuel around since the last fire so I believe it will be ok. Wish me luck fellas! I sure as hell dont feel like building another house. Im getting too old for this crap. Update in the morning! Maybe? Insurance paid up?...check:thumbup:

 

[Karda]

Smoke and prayers for you, ndog!
Along with fireproof britches, perhaps your next investment should be one of these. It even has a turret sprayer.

[video=youtube;sagk06zYna4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sagk06zYna4[/video]

 

[pugs75]

Smoke up for you my brother, love the Hookah by the way.

 

[cul4u01]

Smoke and prayers up D! Stay safe.

A lot of my family and friends, endured the CA valley fires this year, it can very stressful, take care, and do be careful.

 

[T. C. Weston]

The fires this year have been unreal. Stay safe!

 

[Bawanna]

Soaking everything down now with a hose wouldn't help?

We're there for ya if you need us.

 

[snowwolf]

Is it the one close to Austin? http://ticc.tamu.edu/Response/FireActivity/

4200 Acres! Site mentioned now 15% contained - Not much better.

 

[Steve Tall]

Yikes. Good luck, ndog.

 

[ndoghouse]

Thanks all for the good wishes. I think im ready as I can be. Theres a lot less smoke today but the wind has picked up considerably. Seems more like a grass fire with white smoke spread out all over the place. No billowing black smoke so thats good. There's bulldozers, planes and heli's air dropping, and plenty of activity still. I moved everything fuel like away from the house except the grass and even pulled some grass by the doorways and such. I cant Khukri fast enough to get it all. Bout time to buy a lawn mower i guess.

That's the one sno. I haven't heard an update in a while but there's not been any evacuations since this morning that I have heard. In fact they are letting some folks back onto their land so that's promising.

Thanks Pugs! Mom brought that "candle holder" back from Saudi just before the Gulf war. She was working in Jeddah? or Rhiad at the time. As long as you disassembled them and called them candle holders they would let you bring them back to the states.

Thats awesome Karda! I could put me a tank on the ground and turret sprayer on top the dome. Might work? If nothing else the grandkids could have some summer fun in the rain

 

[Bawanna]

I'm cancelling my order for marshmellows and weiners. It's looking like your gonna be ok.

I never cared all that much for marshmellows and weiners anyhow so works out just fine.

 

[ndoghouse]

Yeah me either. Im thinking more like pork spare ribs and beer. Wife wont let me have no scotch. Shes afraid I wont get up in the night iffen the need arises. She is right tho. Ill be a good boy fer now.

 

[Shavru]

Glad to hear that you didn't need to break out any of your over sized Khuks and carve a firebreak. Seems like I came in just as things were turning out good to go. No Scotch? Why that is just plain cruel. I don't think I could convince hubby to give up Scotch for any reason. Certainly not just because he wouldn't wake up.

 

[davidf99]

Glad to hear that you didn't need to break out any of your over sized Khuks and carve a firebreak. Seems like I came in just as things were turning out good to go. No Scotch? Why that is just plain cruel. I don't think I could convince hubby to give up Scotch for any reason. Certainly not just because he wouldn't wake up.

Welcome back to the forum. It's been a while -- unless I missed some posts.

 

[cul4u01]

Glad to hear that you didn't need to break out any of your over sized Khuks and carve a firebreak. Seems like I came in just as things were turning out good to go. No Scotch? Why that is just plain cruel. I don't think I could convince hubby to give up Scotch for any reason. Certainly not just because he wouldn't wake up.

Hey pretty lady, where you been? Hope you're well.

 

[Bawanna]

Hey pretty lady, where you been? Hope you're well.

Hey, that's my steady girl your talking to buddy. Careful. I'm a jealous type.
Rejected my marital cyber bride offers but I'm fixing to try again so watch it!

 

[Yangdu]

Prayers from Reno,
Be safe

 

[cul4u01]

Hey, that's my steady girl your talking to buddy. Careful. I'm a jealous type.
Rejected my marital cyber bride offers but I'm fixing to try again so watch it!

That's right, Mr. B has a crush on the lady....time to jump back on over to my side of the fence, and ask Bookie to lend me his Bawanna voodoo doll...heheheheh.

 

[Jens Schuetz]

Glad things seem better now. Smoke down from us, that it stays that way.

We got a lot of fires too here in North California. So far the closest big one this year was 30 miles away.

How wide should a field of gravel or other non flammable material around the house be so that it's safe from bush fire?

What happens in a fire? Do the firefighters use up all the water in the pipes or would one have the chance to set all lawn sprinklers on high? If that's possible you could have some pop up sprinklers in a perimeter around your house just for that scenario even if you don't have a lawn. Its easy to install. Even chaeper, a few sprinkler hoses which you only deploy in such a situation in order to soak soil and plant material should suffice. If local water and power is off then maybe you have a cistern and a pump with a generator.

 

[Sturubu]

The landscape looks so green (for central TX at least). What allowed the fire to spread so fast - is there a lot of dead undergrowth?

 

[ndoghouse]

Glad to hear that you didn't need to break out any of your over sized Khuks and carve a firebreak. Seems like I came in just as things were turning out good to go. No Scotch? Why that is just plain cruel. I don't think I could convince hubby to give up Scotch for any reason. Certainly not just because he wouldn't wake up.

Sharvru your back!!! Great to hear from ya! Hope your feelin better! Lots of smoke up for ya anywayz Im certainly ready for a glass of Glen Livet Madura in your honor. Cheers! To your health!

I don't see smoke so it must be good! They wont say 100% out if they see anything at all smoking. The last fire broke out a second time a month later after the dead leaves started falling from the trees and got started again from some smoking embers on the ground. We were still sleeping on the ground outside luckily and noticed it about 4:00am. We raked a fire line and finally got it out.

Here''s a few vids of the last one. I think you can see why we dont want to go through this again. Kinda brings back memories.

Heres the day we got home from the last one. (might be profanity and such so if your sensitive dont watch them)

[video=youtube;obMhz9AqPt4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obMhz9AqPt4[/video]

This might give ya an idea why we were concerned. Dang sure had enough of that for a while.

[video=youtube;4zkZ2tyaZJg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zkZ2tyaZJg[/video]

Home two weeks later. The real disaster was waiting on the government to get their stuff together two years later. Your house burned down and they want receipts and paperwork for this and that and well..its up in smoke people don't you understand? I remember the census beaureaux sending this god awful pile of paperwork to sit back and fill out at our leisure in our "living room" and send back to them under penalty of law if we don't. Ha! Well two people live here with four dogs but not in a household! Ha! What a fiasco.

[video=youtube;cyrXYn0BZTw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyrXYn0BZTw[/video]

While looking for a good out of the way place to build our new home I came across this grape vine that burned at the top of the tree and fell to the ground in this circle like a collapsing spring. I did not alter this in any way. This is exactly how i found it! No it wasnt aliens or anything else. Its just what it is. I put a stake in the center of this circle which is now the center point of my new home.

Glad things seem better now. Smoke down from us, that it stays that way.

We got a lot of fires too here in North California. So far the closest big one this year was 30 miles away.

How wide should a field of gravel or other non flammable material around the house be so that it's safe from bush fire?

What happens in a fire? Do the firefighters use up all the water in the pipes or would one have the chance to set all lawn sprinklers on high? If that's possible you could have some pop up sprinklers in a perimeter around your house just for that scenario even if you don't have a lawn. Its easy to install. Even chaeper, a few sprinkler hoses which you only deploy in such a situation in order to soak soil and plant material should suffice. If local water and power is off then maybe you have a cistern and a pump with a generator.

Jens: unfortunately none of that does any good when the fire is so intense. The water vaporizes in seconds and thing burn anyway.

My house was about a tenth of a mile inside that fireline. All you can do it get the heck out.

The landscape looks so green (for central TX at least). What allowed the fire to spread so fast - is there a lot of dead undergrowth?

Pine forest dont need much of anything to get them started. They will burn across the forest floor and also crown across the tree tops so theres two ways for it to spread. This type of fire is so intense that it consumes so much oxygen that the forest floor sometimes gets baked and will not ignite because there is no oxygen left. Later this make for a tinderbox sometimes more dangerous that even before. There were patches that never got burned but were baked brown and crispy. The winds are a large factor as well. The last fire i posted videos of is from a fire four years ago where winds were up to 40 mph. Luckily this one was only 10-20mph and changes direction 180 degrees a few times. If the winds were higher this fire would have been much worse and all the brush that has grown since the last one would have went up quick. I would have surely lost my house a second time. Most of the trees are down but the brush and grass would have went up quickly.