Montecito fire (click to enlarge)

The fire in Santa Barbara/Montecito is finally pretty much controlled.  You can see from the photo I took above the giant scar the fire left on the hillside. Within this scar are over 100 houses burned to the ground. Our house is just to the right of where this picture ends.  As it turned out, we weren’t in any danger, but we didn’t know it when this all started.  The winds were howling with gusts of up to 70 miles per hour and driving the fire in our direction.  Suddenly, for whatever meteorological reason, the winds quit.  The fire then became terrain driven, which means basically that it started burning upward.  Which was fortunate for us and Oprah, since we both live sideways from the fire and not above it.

We have moved all our stuff back into the house and now have to get it back where it belongs.  And I’ve got to tend to this blog and get all the comments up.  But, now we have to leave to get down to LA for a screening of the movie FatHead.  We won’t get back until late tonight.

Tomorrow – Sunday – we’ve got a pretty full schedule as well.  Plus, on Sunday night we have a family birthday party for MD.  Her actual birthday and party were scheduled for last night, but we postponed it due to fleeing from the fire.

By first thing Monday morning, I’ll have Gary’s responses to the questions posted.  Thanks for hanging in there with us through all this.