Buck Fire in Riverside County

Today Chicken, Egg, Coop, and I went out to run some errands. I was hoping Egg and Coop would catch a little nap on the way. One of the advantages of having a teenager is the ability to leave him in the car (with the car running and A/C blasting) to ignore the littles while I run into a store to buy one stupid thing or mail a special package. Shortly after we left the house I noticed some smoke in the sky. Ever since the 2003 San Diego fires Chicken and I have been a little freaked out by fires. On a breezy day that crept into triple digit temperatures a fire was especially bad. We live in the desert, and everything is bone dry.

I decided to head out toward the fire, just to get a glimpse of how far away it was. I thought it would ease Chicken’s anxiety if he saw how far away it was. The area is remote, with lots of slow twisty roads. I used my awesome sense of direction and spotty cell coverage to figure out where we needed to go and how to get the fuck out of there if necessary. We took cell pictures on the way, I apologize for the shitty quality.The best view of the fire happened to be across the street from this house:This helicopter was really close (remember these are pictures from my cell phone) and the air was filled with planes and helicopters.After taking a few pictures I decided to check on the occupants. If I later heard this house burned down while the homeowners napped I would forever feel guilty. I ignored the “Private Property” and “Do Not Trespass” signs and hoped I would get a word in before I saw a gun pointed at me. This part of the sticks is not a great place to go knocking on doors. The old man met me halfway to his door, he was chatty and had been watching the fire for an hour. His dog begged for some scratching and I wished him the best.By the time we reached Temecula the fire had a name, Buck Fire. Named for a cross street off of Sage (which is a main road out there) very close to the fire. The map above shows the intersection of Buck and Sage, marked with an A. The arrow points to where I believe the old man lives. I hope they evacuated him in time. I’ll be checking when the fire is out.This is the Buck fire from the French Valley Airport. If you check my Twitter timeline there is another picture from the center of Temecula. The current news on the fire from the Riverside County Fire Department is “Update 10:36 p.m – The fire is now 3,000 acres, still 5% contained.” The website also states the fire is located on “Sage Rd Between Lewis Valley Rd and Buck Rd.” I hope my brain map is off, because that nice old man is right there. Say a few prayers/special thoughts/hopes for low winds/good luck to the firefighters if you will. Chicken thinks the fire is about 40-60 miles away due to the time it took to get there in our car. It’s actually more like 15 driving miles, and fires don’t tend to follow the road.