This started off on thursday with a small grass fire in the northern edge of Chico, Ca. No biggie, it's out in what ammounts to wild land. It starts to spread south toward Skyway and then Neal road. The fire begins to head up Butte Creek Canyon, which leads to Paradise.
At 3:15 I hear that Skyway is going to be shutdown. I leave immeadiately, but too late, Skyway is closed and the alterante route takes about an hour longer than normal because of the people trying to get to Paradise, myself included.
I finally get home. My wife has been packing as we are ABOVE the evacuation line, and not required to leave, but she and I know full well what could happen.
My boss, who lives in the lower part of town, has loaded up his trailer and headed back to Chico to wait out the fire, as he is under a full evac.
The next morning we listen to the town radio, and find out we are under a precautionary evac. The police come around and advise us, and tie a yellow ribbon on our door. If we leave we can't come back. We decide to stick it out.
All day we watch as the fire makes it's way toward town, listening to the radio, TV, anything that tells us whats going on.
Pretty much, that evening, it's impossible to sleep.
Saturday comes around, and there's no change in our status. It's just sit and wait. Later the fire comes even closer to town, but if the fire fighters can keep it from going up Butte Creek, we should be ok, depending on the wind.
During all this we are caring for 7 foster kittens, 1 of which is sick. The gal that runs the outfit is cheap, and dosen't want to spend the money to take the sick cat to the vet. My wife is very upset about this. The gal finally approves some funds, and because the fire has passed Skyway, it's now open and my wife takes
her to a emergency vet in Chico. Later that afternoon one of the other kittens shows up at our rear slider door, litterally on deaths doorstep. I dident realize he was out side eariler, and had closed up the house to turn on the AC. We cool him off, hydrate him, etc.. He doesn't respond. By 8:00 hes's pretty bad so I rush off to the same place my wife just returned from. Nearly $500 later we have a dead kitten, because as we find out it had a type of lukemia, and the reason I didn't find the cat is it went off to die, but came back.
Later that evening we go to the edge of the canyon and watch the fire, it seems that it's going up Doe Mill canyon, which is confirmed on the radio. But we still arent in the clear. Any reverse in the wind could blow the fire right into town.
We try to sleep that evening, but at 2 am the first kitten starts meowing loudly, she's in her death throws. We hold her until the end at 2:09. We have no idea what happened to her, it just wasen't ment to be, I guess. Really shitty night.
Sunday comes around and the fire looks like it staying in the other canyon, and by noon all the evac's are lifted. Maybe Fathers Day won't be a complete wash.
My daughter wants to swimming with the neighbors across the street at the house they are watching, which is in the "rich" area of town. We say OK, but be back in time for the BBQ I've planned.
The wife and I, to relax, sit down to play some WoW. Well, tried. At 2:50 the power goes out. Some large power poles that were damaged fell over, taking out power to roughly half the town.
5:30 comes around, and no kidlet. My wife checks her cell phone and find a message that the people that my kid is with are going to be "late". We can't get out to contact them as our reception up here is utter crap. Using the scant directions my wife attempts to find the house for a hour and a half. FINALLY she finds the place, and gets her home for dinner. It's 7:30.
Personally, I've had enough of this shit, so I break out a bottle of 98' Smith Haut Lafite, and start the steaks. We eat by candle light, the wine and company making up for the last few horrible days.
Right now I feel like I've been run over by a truck, but we made it, safe and sound.
