Desert Life- Very Boring or WAY Too Exciting

[JStarr]

I live rural- about two miles north of the border with Mexico. It's quiet here. When I told my middle son I could see Mexico from the back patio, he asked what it looked like. Like my backyard, I told him. It's just mostly empty land and then a knot of houses on the US side, and a small town, Naco, on the Mexico side. Nothing.

But today, it got exciting.

"Fire on the mountain- run, boys! Run!"
This was about two and a half miles NWWW of our place, on the top of a foothill, wind out of the SSSW- our little main road State highway is closed, so no heading into town for anything, but that's okay- it's under control now so we've had more than enough excitement for today.

 

[CaliAnn]

Glad they knocked it down so fast. I live in Southern California - when I first moved here - I would hear people talking about fire season - didn't know what they were talking about, how could fire be a season? Well, now I know!

 

[Terri]

That's some scary stuff! Glad to hear it was jumped on and put under control quickly. Nice to know there's quick action in case of anything else happening. Let's hope that's the extent of your excitement!

 

[Enyaw]

I'll take bored over high probabilities of misery for someone including me.

 

[JStarr]

Glad they knocked it down so fast. I live in Southern California - when I first moved here - I would hear people talking about fire season - didn't know what they were talking about, how could fire be a season? Well, now I know!

A friend much closer says he thinks it is still burning some, but mostly in grass with every so often a bit of live oak or ironwood (madrona) going up to give the smoke some color. Fire runs uphill (heat rises- so fire follows) but since this appears to have started at the top of a rise, it was easier to divide it and get it under control.

I bet Cali gets really fun sometimes- wasn't it called Land of Fire by Native Americans there?

 

[JStarr]

That's some scary stuff! Glad to hear it was jumped on and put under control quickly. Nice to know there's quick action in case of anything else happening. Let's hope that's the extent of your excitement!

They learned their lesson in 2013, I believe it was, during the Monument Fire; if you do fire stuff, it is still an item on such research and info pages because it was a HUGE fire in trackless mountains, high winds, high fuel loads, and the various fire departments spent the whole first day protecting the houses up against the mountains which allowed the fire to run uphill (heat rises- so does fire), sit on the top of the mountain all night, then come shooting down the canyons like one of those rides at an amusement park- only fire, not water. Did that for three days- bad deal.

So now they hop onto fire here in Cochise County. And this one was a lesson learned.

For us, south of it, we got to watch the tankers dump neon pink slurry- neat stuff from a couple miles away!

 

[JStarr]

I'll take bored over high probabilities of misery for someone including me.

That's why we live here- it's usually boring.

People ask, "Aren't you worried about illegal crossers?"

Nope- we're too close to the border here- crossers aren't stopping until they get a couple five or six miles north.

 

[snoball]

I've been terrified of fire ever since our bus driver parked us and let us watch the high school gym burn down when I was in 4th grade, so 2 1/2 miles is too close for me!

 

[Enyaw]

.. we had a few out of control fires about 2 hours south of us but the wind never changed so while it bazed, it and the bad air went away from our location. We were very fortunate. After days of fire we got a rainstorm that lasted about a week. That was long enough to put things under conrtol and out.

 

[OliveOyl]

JStarr…are you in AZ and who needs “excitement” like that? That fire looks too close for comfort but happy to hear it was contained quickly!

My (silly) fire story: When I was around 9yo, we moved to the south where I first learned about the Klu Klux Klan. This was before smoke detectors, so I’d sit up in bed as long as I could…sniffing the air…in case they came to our neighborhood in their robes and on horses and where their giant burning crosses could fall onto our roof and we would all die a horrible death. I mean, SOMEBODY had to stay alert because the rest of the family-unit was all oblivious to the danger and just snoozed away in dreamland.

And then…when I moved to this dry and high desert climate at the end of 2021, five months later, we were into (as they say) “the worst fire season in New Mexico history,” which ended up burning almost 900,000 acres. What a warm welcome. It freaked me out enough though, that now I have a Go Bag, all packed up and ready to…well…grab and go running for my life when my house catches on fire.

Obviously, I’ve always been a little neurotic worrywart but now…at least…I’m more organized about it.
Yay me.

 

[JStarr]

I've been terrified of fire ever since our bus driver parked us and let us watch the high school gym burn down when I was in 4th grade, so 2 1/2 miles is too close for me!

Sounds like it! He'd likely be arrested for emotional abuse today

 

[JStarr]

.. we had a few out of control fires about 2 hours south of us but the wind never changed so while it bazed, it and the bad air went away from our location. We were very fortunate. After days of fire we got a rainstorm that lasted about a week. That was long enough to put things under conrtol and out.

Lucky you folks, eh? It isn't fun being under mandatory evacuation orders knowing if things get REALLY bad, you'll have nothing to come home to.

 

[JStarr]

JStarr…are you in AZ and who needs “excitement” like that? That fire looks too close for comfort but happy to hear it was contained quickly!

My (silly) fire story: When I was around 9yo, we moved to the south where I first learned about the Klu Klux Klan. This was before smoke detectors, so I’d sit up in bed as long as I could…sniffing the air…in case they came to our neighborhood in their robes and on horses and where their giant burning crosses could fall onto our roof and we would all die a horrible death. I mean, SOMEBODY had to stay alert because the rest of the family-unit was all oblivious to the danger and just snoozed away in dreamland.

And then…when I moved to this dry and high desert climate at the end of 2021, five months later, we were into (as they say) “the worst fire season in New Mexico history,” which ended up burning almost 900,000 acres. What a warm welcome. It freaked me out enough though, that now I have a Go Bag, all packed up and ready to…well…grab and go running for my life when my house catches on fire.

Obviously, I’ve always been a little neurotic worrywart but now…at least…I’m more organized about it.
Yay me.

In the Monument Fire, we had five pets and a 5th wheel- we literally threw stuff into the RV, hooked up and booked up onto Ft Huachuca (wah choo ca). We were allowed back in two days later, then tossed back out that afternoon, and had to stay out another three days- our place was in no danger but the road to our place was closed for the various fire crews, and (is NM like this?) "you can't get there from here" roads going around to get here were just waaaaay too long.

Glad you were smart enough to stay alert even as a kid; you can call it neurotic worrywart, but crap was happening when we were stationed in a few places down there in the 70s and 80s- it just wasn't... newsworthy on a national scale.

Go bag's are good ideas- and here's a hint: Keep clean water somewhere in the house for when the crews cut the electric and oooops! You're not in danger, but you have no water. I stash it under all sinks and there's some in the garage fridge. And don't be like the idjits here who refuse to evacuate thinking they're fighting a wild fire with a garden hose.

You're right- Yay you!

 

[stlukesguild]

No thank you to fires. I'll stick with the occasional excitement of tornados that we get around here. At least they come and go and are over quickly.

 

[snoball]

JStarr…are you in AZ and who needs “excitement” like that? That fire looks too close for comfort but happy to hear it was contained quickly!

My (silly) fire story: When I was around 9yo, we moved to the south where I first learned about the Klu Klux Klan. This was before smoke detectors, so I’d sit up in bed as long as I could…sniffing the air…in case they came to our neighborhood in their robes and on horses and where their giant burning crosses could fall onto our roof and we would all die a horrible death. I mean, SOMEBODY had to stay alert because the rest of the family-unit was all oblivious to the danger and just snoozed away in dreamland.

And then…when I moved to this dry and high desert climate at the end of 2021, five months later, we were into (as they say) “the worst fire season in New Mexico history,” which ended up burning almost 900,000 acres. What a warm welcome. It freaked me out enough though, that now I have a Go Bag, all packed up and ready to…well…grab and go running for my life when my house catches on fire.

Obviously, I’ve always been a little neurotic worrywart but now…at least…I’m more organized about it.
Yay me.

O.O. I was the same way. I'd have a nightmare about fire and get up and creep around through the house, looking out every window to be sure there was no fire out there. Any time during the night that I woke up, I would check the windows. At least the nightmares ceased after I became an adult, but I still am a fire freak.

 

[Artyczar]

I've lived in the land of earthquakes and fires (LA) my whole life. It's not that you get used to it, it's just that there's something everywhere that's terrifying. You try not to think about it until it's actually happening!

I now live in the California high desert, and both happen here too. There have been BIG earthquakes here and fires that have burned down hundreds of thousands of acres. We are not exactly prepared because our lives are more important than things, but we do have a 10-minutes "fire list." The things we would gather if we had 10 minutes to get the hell out of Dodge. That's about all. Which reminds me, we didn't put "clothes" on that list! I better change it, but that will take up a good amount of time, throwing clothes in a suitcase. It's a terrifying thought indeed! But it's also reality. You can only be so prepared for something like that.

 

[stlukesguild]

Unfortunately, tornados don't give you even a minute, let alone 10, to gather anything together beyond yourself, family, and pets before running for shelter. I've seen several up close over the years including one that tore through the neighborhood where I grew up. We went out surveying the damage after it had passed. The power of those things is not to be believed. It tore through a forest nearby clearing everything in a path wide enough for a two or 3 lane road and came down on a huge oak tree at the end of my street absolutely obliterating it and leaving nothing but wood pulp. The scary thing is how erratic they are. They suddenly jump back up into the clouds and you can see them swirling around as they pass over your head, and then they drop back down just as fast. They also change direction continually. We were very lucky with the tornado that went through my neighborhood. It tore up the woods a quarter mile from my home then rose up into the clouds and passed over my entire street before dropping down again to take out that single oak tree and then back up and over the house next to the tree. It then dropped back down and went up and down a short cul de sac taking out every tree in the front lawns but leaving all the houses relatively untouched, before taking off through another forested area and eventually destroying one of the Middle Schools in town. Luckily, it was summer and there was no one in the school.

We had a couple of nasty tornados touch down west of Cleveland a week or so ago and the news was filled with footage of all the destruction. Because of the way that Cleveland sits northward along the coast of Lake Erie and the manner in which the air flows, the city itself and the immediate suburbs (especially to the east) almost never see tornados... but the cities west of Cleveland... such as the town where I grew up... are on the tail-end of the so-called "Tornado Alley". If you enter the name of the town Xenia (near Columbus, Ohio... South-West of Cleveland) into Google, the first thing to pop up will be the Xenia Tornado. I was just a little kid when that storm came through in the mid-1970s, but I still remember it. The tornado was given a rating of F6... only one of 2 tornados ever assigned this rating. It was later downgraded to an F5 because the meteorologist, Dr. Ted Fujita, who developed the F-Scale deemed the F6 rating as "inconceivable". The tornado literally destroyed the whole of the town of Xenia.

 

[JStarr]

I've lived in the land of earthquakes and fires (LA) my whole life. It's not that you get used to it, it's just that there's something everywhere that's terrifying. You try not to think about it until it's actually happening!

I now live in the California high desert, and both happen here too. There have been BIG earthquakes here and fires that have burned down hundreds of thousands of acres. We are not exactly prepared because our lives are more important than things, but we do have a 10-minutes "fire list." The things we would gather if we had 10 minutes to get the hell out of Dodge. That's about all. Which reminds me, we didn't put "clothes" on that list! I better change it, but that will take up a good amount of time, throwing clothes in a suitcase. It's a terrifying thought indeed! But it's also reality. You can only be so prepared for something like that.

We have alerts on our phones and Alexa- they are tied into the Emergency Management System in the County. Sometimes they go for stupid stuff (Critical Heat Watch- like we didn't know) but it doesn't happen so often we ignore them.

I just got back from a run to Ace is the Place where I followed two bikers into the store and one was complaining he didn't know why they'd closed the highway there the other day- musta been the smoke. Yes, Mr. HowCanYouTellIDon'tWearAHelmet, it surely wasn't tanker planes coming in less than a couple hundred feet off the ground there dropping slurry right next to the highway, nor the fact the wind was whipping at a steady fifteen with gusts to thirty-five, and the fuel load on that foothill is dead-dry grass, broom, creosote and tumbleweeds interspersed with madrona, live oak and mesquite- the wildland fire fighters got really lucky with exactly where that fire was- at the top of the rise. They cut it in half with the slurry drops, which gave them time to cut it off to the north, and mop it up to the south.

Cali high desert is *hot*- we were at Edwards a couple years.

 

[MrBungle]

I went through Hurricane Ian and that scared the out of me.

 

[JStarr]

I went through Hurricane Ian and that scared the out of me.

I keep telling those "everything should be natural, live as One with the Earth" people that this planet will kill you in a heartbeat.

Glad you got out alive.