Palomar Mountain News

It was very impressive to see such a fast response yesterday to a fire started on the South Grade by lightening.

I was driving home through Rincon when it started raining hard for a couple minutes.  Hummm, lightening on the mountain!  When I got to 76 I glanced up to make the turn in time to see a plane drop red fire retardant. (Photo from CalFire twitter).

South and East Grades were closed so I came up Nate Harrison Grade. Quite comforting to pull in next to a big fire truck in our driveway.  The fire was below State Park Road, out on the west side of South Grade.  About the fourth parcel down the ridge from us.  A plane and helicopters did a fabulous job for hours. Dozers arrived to cut a path to help get hand crews in.  Last night CalFire, Forest Service, Sheriffs and more were staged across from our place.  One of the fire fighters fell, was injured and hard to locate in that steep canyon with radio challenges. Thankfully he was found and air-lifted out last night.

More helicopters were out first thing this morning and hand crews working.  I spoke to a CalFire guy a few minutes ago and he said crews have circled the fire to do mop up work.  They are on their way home now and our Mountain Cal Fire guys will keep a lookout tonight.  Tomorrow they’ll have more crews finish up.

Here are a few more photos for you. Thanks to Rob Hawk:

Our daughter-in-law, Heidi Phelps took these with our ‘Treasures” in tow for a very interesting Home School Day on the Mountain:

We are sure blessed on this little mountain to have the fire responded to and taken care of so quickly.  Thanks to ALL.

Bonnie Phelps