Shasta Guy
Carr Fire (Photo: CalFire)
By Shasta Guy
Many of you have undoubtedly heard of the Carr Fire up in Redding, which happens to be where I grew up. If you mix the Thomas Fire with the Tea Fire on Steroids, that’s what happened to my hometown. More than 500 structures were burned in 24 hrs, and there are 5-6 deaths reported. The fire is still out of control with only 5% containment which many communities threatened. The CalFire Website is a poor source of info, but here it is.
There are close to 40,000 evacuees. One firefighter Redding working the fire near Yosemite, came home to Redding only to find his house incinerated. The people who lost their homes have very meager means, and this fire has the potential to wipe them out financially, especially if they have no insurance or were renters without insurance. Just like the gardeners and domestic help who lost their income because of the mudslides in Montecito, these people cannot get to work or home and are stuck in shelters for an indefinite time.
If you ever visited Whiskeytown Lake, the fire completely encircled the lake. The Brandy Creek beach and Oak Bottom campground likely were destroyed. Boats were destroyed at the Marina at Oak Bottom where I grew up water skiing. Presently the fire is working its way north between Trinity and Shasta Lakes. I hope they they can make a stand or it will threaten the Siskiyou County communities of Dunsmuir and Mount Shasta City.
The fire overran neighborhoods where people I know still live. The fire overran the cemetery where my mother was laid to rest in 1992. She wanted to be buried under a specific oak tree, and next to a small child who was buried without any family. Being a hospital chaplain, she wanted to provide what comfort she could to the lonesome boy laid to rest with no one.
During the Thomas Fire, I saw trucks from Weaverville, The Redding Hotshots, Hayfork, Happy Camp, Burney, Mount Shasta. Those brave men and women protected our city, and many of them are in harms way.
Redding doesn’t have anything like Edhat, so you get a feel for what’s at the local level by going to: #carrfire, #redding, or “Carr Fire Update” in your browser. You can modify the time period to be the last hour, last 25 hrs, or past week. Some twitter comments can be pretty wacky, so just ignore them and focus on what’s happening to that entire region.
If you can consider helping out financially. Any gift counts. These organizations will directly help people in distress:
1. You can go to the link of Tri Counties Bank. Select any branch, send a check with “Carr Fire” on it: https://www.tcbk.com/fire-relief
2. You can send a check directly to The United Way, put Carr Fire on it:
You can send a check directly to The Redding Chapter of The American Red Cross, put Carr Fire on it:
I don’t want to HEAR ANY COMPLAINTS ABOUT ANY OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS BECAUSE YOU HAD A BEEF WITH THEM IN THE PAST. All of them are boots on the ground helping very desperate people. Just scroll through #carrfire to understand the devastation. Awe heck, why don’t you also say, A Gift From The Santa Barbara Edhat community.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE EDHATTERS! THANK ALL LOCAL FIRST RESPONDERS HELPING MY HOMETOWN!
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