This page was done just to record the events surrounding this fire which burned part of my town... Started 3 weeks ago, it is still burning in the mountains.
I took the large photo about 7:45 PM Thursday July 26, 2018 having no idea that was the moment the Carr Fire turned into a huge fire storm... It had crossed the river and formed a Firenado, which is exactly what it sounds like.. a category 3 tornado made of fire!!! See photo lower left. They determined the winds were about 142 mph. We had all been watching this fire approach Redding since Monday... No one expected it to cross the river... As I understand the river played into forming the firenado... Where I was at, 5 miles away, there was no wind!
There was mass hysteria as people ran for their lives... The stories are emerging of the close escapes... Given the speed it was traveling it is a wonder that only 10 lives have been lost and only 5 of them that horrible night. A firefighter, on top of a hill with some high end homes getting the people out, was surrounded by fire, and died... a bull dozer driver was overcome by the flames before he could put his safety curtains in place... the dozer windshields were shattering from the heat, with shards of glass damaging the drivers... The other 3 were a great grandmother and 2 of her grandchildren!!! Janice and I traveled up there a week later, and it was chilling the scene of devastation... magnified for us by having seen the devastation added to the stories we are hearing now!
The catastrophic weather created by the Carr Fire astonished many highly experienced firefighters, a report says. The rotating vertical plume generated winds equivalent to an EF-3 tornado, powerful enough to overturn trains and rip bark off trees, and likely caused temperatures that exceeded 2,700 degrees, according to the report.
The elderly couple who caused the fire , when a flat tire caused the wheel rim to scrape the pavement are totally devastated... this is the area where it started..
One of the most surprising things was how random the houses burned were... Sometimes only 1 in a whole row of untouched ones, or only one left standing on a burned out street!!!
The aftermath... the small town
of Keswick had only 2 houses
left out of 40
