It’s been such a hectic day. I got under 3 hours of light snoozing in last night, about an hour and a half today, so I’m running on caffeine, adrenaline, nerves and TV news.

I suspect tomorrow will be a very bad day for a lot of people. At least 50 homes burned in Poway, 70 in Escondido, unknown in Rancho Bernardo and Ramona. There are only a few places where they’ve been able to give street addresses on the news.

My area we think was officially evacuated, but looking at maps it’s really hard to tell. The streets they have named on the news pretty much surround it without including it, but it’s kind of an odd corner we live in. I’m wondering if the news didn’t list it just because it was hard to give street names for the borders.

The kids were really reluctant to go to bed. Ariel couldn’t find one of her toys that she likes to sleep with. At home it’s one she would never miss. With all the stress it was the most important thing to her.

Gage was just flat out stubborn. He wanted me to sleep with him.

We tried taking some old maps of the area and highlighting evacuation areas and known burn zones, but it was just really tough to keep  up. Otherwise I would have posted a picture. But when you talk about evacuating the area bordered by the I-5, I-15, the 76 and I think it was the 56 on the south end of things, that’s a huge area.

The voluntary evacuations have grown to include several coastal areas. Consider that this started far inland, up in the hills around Santa Ysabel.

I’m sure that I’ll be taking pictures eventually, although for now I’d rather stay in the uneventful areas.

Not that things are quiet here. 11 people (4 kids, 7 adults), with the possibility of one more, plus quite an assortment of dogs and cats. We’re at my mother’s house, but my sister’s sister-in-law is a dog breeder (boxers) and we were the only place she could find to come with her dogs. It’s been very interesting.

The Poway School District has closed at least through Wednesday. That makes a lot of sense to me. No point pretending that things are going to get better by the end of tomorrow (Tuesday). But Ariel is going to be just devastated because Thursday her class has a field trip to Bates’ Nut Farm. I’m not betting on that. Who knows if the fires will be out by then. Worse, will Bates’ be around? It’s in the backcountry, and I know some fires did burn up in its general direction. Just don’t know if it was close at all to them.

We’re still considered fairly safe where we are. Looking around the neighborhood we can see that a lot of families clearly have evacuees staying with them. In fact, some of the relatives who had offered us the chance to stay with them themselves have had to evacuate.

We’re talking about sleeping in shifts tonight, to keep up with the news. It’s hard to trust that things won’t turn bad. In 2003 the fires extended to within 3 miles of where I am, and there’s a canyon behind us.

[tags]ramona fire,witch fire,rancho bernardo fire,poway fire,fire evacuations,escondido fire,homes destroyed,san diego fire[/tags]

Disclosure: I often review or mention products for which I may receive compensation in the form of affiliate commissions. All opinions are my own.