What's left...

Check this out! This is where Brice and I lived when we first got married. Actually, our apartment is (was) just outside the left side of the frame.


Fires are devastating a good portion of the town (Running Springs--"Slide Fire"). It's a town of about 5000 people and over 200 homes burned to the ground. So far, I don't know anyone personally that lost their house, but no one is allowed up yet, so the info comes from people that didn't evacuate and that are driving around and posting what they see on the internet. Addresses are hard to come by when there isn't a house to post it on.
Also, our phone has been down for almost two weeks, so I have only been in contact via e-mail. My father in law is still up there. He was in the safest part of the mountain, but in the beginning when things were pretty uncertain, he still insisted he was going to stay up there and ride it out.

This last picture is of my good friend Sue. She and her husband stayed up there and saved their house! The house behind her isn't hers, but rather the house her kids grew up in. They live in a little community of about 100 houses and more than 30 of them burned. Jack and Sue have spent the last few years building a new house in the same community and Brice has helped on several of their projects. Jack even did his own cabinetry and it's a work of art. I'm SO glad they didn't lose their home!

The fires are on day 4 in the mountains and one of them (yup, there's two) is 70% contained (the one that's between my parent's old house in Lake Arrowhead and my in law's house in Crestline--"Grass Valley Fire") and the Running Springs/Slide fire (where Brice and I lived) is only 15% contained which the firefighters did overnight last night--yesterday it was still 0% contained.

Pretty crazy huh!