Grimace

Here by popular demand...well, one request, and the fact that it's not a fit day to go outside...is Grimace who began life as a Kong alligator but which Spike has reduced to what you see. One would think that a dog that cannot see very well would be a little more respectful of his toys' faces....He has a a lot of pent up energy since we have had a steady (but very wet) drizzle for two days and he hasn't gotten the exercise he deserves. We Californians are not as hardy as people who experience more rain, and this is not my favorite kind of weather, but I am certainly not complaining one little bit, as a slow soaking rain is just the kind of lead up to the rainy season we need. A 'Pineapple Express' as it is known here, or an 'atmospheric river' as the forecasters are fond of calling it is predicted for Sunday. 

It's ironic that this very rainy day is the 30th anniversary of what we have always called the East Bay Hills Fire, but is now being called the 'Tunnel Fire'. Fires are usually named for the place where they started, not where they end up, and that one did indeed start, probably by an illegal campfire, just above the Caldecott Tunnel which runs beneath the East Bay Hills into Contra Costa County. The fire was put out, but the firefighters didn't remain on the scene, and in the early hours of the next day, driven by hot dusty Santa Ana winds, it flared up and took over while most people were still sleeping.

 Anniversaries of disasters  seem to be almost as popular with the news outlets as sensationalizing the weather, and we certainly remember standing on the sidewalk in front of our Berkeley house watching as houses literally caught fire (fed by countless eucalyptus trees), blew up and burned to the ground within minutes. We lived four blocks below the Claremont Hotel*  where the firefighters made a stand, for if the hotel had burned, the fire probably would have burned all the way to the bay.

We also watched as the day wore on, as a steady stream of fire trucks from all over the state drove up Ashby Avenue a half block away from our house on Magnolia St., and people, many of them on foot, ran down it, having escaped the fire with only the clothes they stood up in. 24 people lost their lives, trapped in their cars at an intersection of two steep, narrow winding roads and the only exit from the hills. 

We had our four cats in the bathroom, and two dogs and the family silver in the car in case we had to evacuate, but the Berkeley firefighters stood their ground, the wind changed and the fire changed direction. The streets around the Peet's Coffee across the street from the Claremont, which we often called our 'living room' because we walked there every day, became a staging area for fire trucks, and  Peet's became a place where everyone went to try and get information about lost family members, friends and pets.

That was the first such 'firestorm' in the state and listening to the stories on the radio this morning, I realize how much we have learned since then. We are certainly no strangers to 'wildland interface' fires but for today, at least, I think we have been able to put our fire fears to rest as we watch the rain running down the windows.

*extra photo taken from Fire in the Hills: A Collective Remembrance,  edited by my friend and neighbor, Pat Adler