Picture of the Day - A-Town Home Fire

I was at the UPS Store in Atascadero today when an Atascadero police car screamed headed south-bound on El Camino Real. This struck me as interesting and I wondered what was happening. A minute or so later another siren approached following the same course and it turned out to be chief of Atascadero Fire Department. I then proceeded to leave the business having accomplished my tasks there and so headed south on the main drag of town to see if I could find out what was going on. Around the time I reached Curbaril Avenue I espied a dark header somewhere to the south and headed that way. Upon approaching Santa Rosa Road I saw an ambulance and two more Type-1 fire engines pulling from that street southbound onto El Camino Real. I also noted the growing traffic jam in that area and took evasive action to get to where I could see the fire and not be stuck in traffic. I feared it was a horrible fiery traffic mishap on the northbound side of Highway 101 but it turned out to be a fully-engulfed single family mobile home in the neighborhood between El Camino Real and the freeway. I have read unofficial reports of there being a smoke inhalation injury to a resident of the home who was rescued by a passerby. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved). 

A Fire Began Of The City 110 Years Ago Today

This is a view of San Francisco 110 years ago today burning as a result of the great earthquake which struck the San Francisco Bay Area at the crack of dawn. The quake and resulting fires destroyed much of the city and killed 3,000-5,000 across the region. The city mostly survived the quake which began under the city and due to directivity, focused much of the quake's energy away from the city north and south down the San Andreas Fault. William Randolph Hearst suggested there wasn't so much a fire in San Francisco than there was a fire of San Francisco and that was accurate. Image in the public domain and photographer is unknown to me.

Downtown LA Ablaze This Hour

The Twitter-verse is aflood this hour of the middle-of-the-night wee-hour-of-the-morning with images from around downtown. They show a monster fire destroying a massive six-story Da Vinci Apartments complex under construction at 909 West Temple Street. It appears to have collapsed onto the 110 or 101 Freeway as this is near their intersection with Temple Street and Figueroa Streets in Downtown Los Angeles. The fire is threatening adjacent exposures according to the LAFD which is declaring this a major emergency fire with multiple alarms and over 200 firefighters on scene. 

Photo by Jon Passantino (all rights reserved).

Photo by Eric Politzer (all rights reserved).

Photo by CRNKN (all rights reserved).

Photo by Luke Woods (all rights reserved).

Photo by Victor (all rights reserved).

Photo by Nick Sugai (all rights reserved).

Pre-collapse photo by Jon Passantino (all rights reserved).

Photo from another freeway by KTLA-TV Los Angeles (all rights reserved).

Post-collapse photo by KNBC-TV Los Angeles (all rights reserved).

My First Fire Chase of 2013

After work today at mom's place I was at Thai-rrific in Atascadero getting us dinner and heard a siren approach the intersection of El Camino Real and Curbaril as I got out of my car in the parking lot. As I walked in the door I noticed it was AFD Truck 7545 (the big one with the aerial monitor that squirts a master stream from above) headed eastbound on Curbaril having apparently just gotten off the 101 Freeway. It continued eastbound and I continued onwards to pick up my red curry fried rice with chicken. I retrieved our dinner and then left in my car eastbound on Curbaril wondering where that big lug of a fire apparatus gone. Since I heard no other sirens while I was at the restaurant I assumed the call was medical in nature and that the usual use of Engine 7592 from Station #2 was replaced by the 7545 unit due to repairs or other.

I got back to mom's place off of Curbaril near the railroad tracks and she immediately asked me if I had seen what had driven through her neighborhood Code 3 minutes before I returned as she had been "indisposed" at the time and missed seeing it. I told her what it was and that I was surprised it had driven as far east as east of her house as that seemed to me to be the cover area of Station #1. I dismissed it and we proceeded to have dinner in front of the television and saw on the local news that there had been a robbery in Atascadero today (wow, another serious crime following the recent murder of an AHS grad).

Soon we heard another siren rolling down Curbaril eastbound so I got up and checked and low and behold it was that Truck 7545 again (or so I thought). I assumed at that time that it had returned to station from its previous call rather soon after I saw it and now was being called out to mom's general neighborhood for another call  in rather quick succession.

Near the end of dinner we then heard Air Attack 340 fly overhead. I was still in denial anything was going on of interest and assumed it was simply passing over en route to or from a fire call elsewhere. Nonetheless, the sound of its engines is like Pavlov's dogs to mom and I being life-long fire chasers from a three-generation California fire chasing family. I went out onto her driveway and immediately noticed the aircraft orbiting above and so I walked down her driveway to the street and immediately noticed smoke to the left which is northeast. A little closer examination revealed that there was a fire with dark smoke in what appeared to be the Salinas Riverbed up near the Highway 41 bridge.

I immediately elected to go check it out and see if I could take any images that would be blog-worthy. I offered to take mom with me but she declined as she was still finishing up her dinner so I went alone. I took Sycamore around Pine Mountain from Curbaril to get a closer look and soon realized this was a structure fire in the Sycamore Industrial Park adjacent to the river and south of the bridge. Below are images I took immediately upon arriving the first time and others from a second visit to the fire after I went back and picked up mom following a lull in the fire which tricked me into believing it was over before it actually was.

As it turned out that second truck I saw roar through mom's neighborhood on Curbaril was a second such unit and in particular it was mutual aid from the City of Paso Robles which also has one in its arsenal. The fire turned out to be burning in the rear-most building of the Sycamore Industrial Park on the east side of Atascadero in the shadow of Pine Mountain. This building housed a fiberglass manufacturing plant which was completely destroyed.

Atascadero F.D. Truck 7545 directing its master stream through a skylight with Paso Robles F.D. Truck 8141 preparing to do the same.

Paso Robles F.D. Truck 8141 (left) directing its master stream onto the fire while Atascadero F.D. Truck 7545 (right) does the same.

Paso Robles F.D. Truck 8141 continues to direct its master stream on an apparently worsening fire at this point while Atascadero F.D. Truck 7545 takes a break.

Paso Robles F.D. Truck 8141

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)