AmandaOT

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire....

I saw my first forest fire last night on my way to LA. Turns out that at 4:59 PM, about 10 miles south of Santa Clarita, a forest fire broke out right next to the 5. I arrived in Santa Clarita at 5:15. 50 minutes later, I was pass the fire. The fire had travelled within 10 feet of the northbound freeway. That part of the fire had been extinguished, but flames were still shooting straight up from the mountain tops east of the freeway. There were at least 5 fire trucks and 3 helicopters fighting the blaze. It was pretty amazing. Since I was southbound, we were backed up for gawking only. Northbound was reduced from 3 to 2 lanes in rush hour traffic. The good thing about being on my side was the traffic jam created less traffic in the end for me. Traffic was thinned for the rest of my drive. I am happy I left work as early as I did, or who knows how long I would have sat there. To think though, if I had remembered to get gas on Thursday night and not stopped home to turn on the air for PP, I could have cut 50 minutes out of my trip. It's a toss up there.

Strangely, that was not the first fire I saw on my drive. About 20 miles north of Bakersfield, there was a semi sitting on the entrance ramp of the 99 engulfed in flames. The top half of the cab was pretty much gone, as was most of the trailer. The grass around the truck and along the freeway was on fire too. It was a fire filled drive.

posted by amanda @ 11:47 AM