Good Morning! 72F @ 6:00AM. Plentiful sunshine. High 103F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Ron, sounds like you're getting your strength back! :thumbsup:
They're the times of your lives, Kyle.
Ground the heads of another hundred or so plug welds yesterday using the zirconia flapper wheel from HF, and it's still holding up well. Didn't work so well on to remove the headliner clip, so it was back to the spot weld drill, but it made very quick work taking off the little dots that were left behind.
That got me to about noon, and as I wasn't hungry yet and was getting tired of tripping over the new set of tires for the zebra bike, I decided it was time to mount them. That also went well, but did have to break the bead and rotate the back tire 180 degrees to get it to balance. At that point I still wasn't hungry, so took a little nap on the couch.
I wasn't down long before I started hearing airplanes and helicopters close by, and sure enough when I looked out the window to the west the air was full of smoke.
Just across the canyon a very large house was almost covered by a thick shroud of smoke, and a helicopter dragging a water bucket hovered overhead. I watched as it dumped it's load, but not on the house. Then back to the reservoir to fill up again, then it just circled the house. A borate bomber plane also began to circle but held off on a run, all this while an OV-10 spotter plane kept an eye on things. The Butte County Safety Scanner page on Facebook told me it was a grass fire that had been stopped before it reached the house, but it was a close thing. Close to here, too, only 3/4 mile away. But 1000 feet of that were bare canyon wall and water, so unless an ember managed to float that far, I was still relatively safe. About that time the phone rang and it was my bulldozer neighbor, who lives another two miles to the east, asking if I'd seen the fire. He'd been watching it since the beginning, as his property is much higher and he has a view looking down on that location. He said that a burnt manzanita leaf had fallen in his yard, so I think we can all be grateful that the fire didn't spot over the lake and take off again. Took them less than half an hour to stop the flames from spreading; very good response from a fire service that has been heavily criticized in the past. Here's the incident log from Facebook:
Pentz IC
20:10
Fire contained at 6.5 acres
19:47
85% contained, First units at scene had fire on both sides of Pentz Road. Hose lines are around the perimeter of the fire.
Crews will be working for the next several hours controlling the fire.
16:30
6.5 acres, 1 dozer is being released. More releases to follow shortly.
16:18
Forward progress has been stopped.
15:55
3 acre vegetation fire at XXXX Pentz Rd.
Crews are arriving on scene.
Up and at 'em, gang. It's Monday again...
