Mendocino complex fire

After a 3 Hour Drive. I arrived at the town of North Lake. The first things that I saw were helicopters going back-and-forth between the lake to pick up water and somewhere beyond my vision in the mountains to dump it. I slowly drove up the dirt road headed for what looks like the highest peak that I could point out on the topographical map. After about 1 mile up that dirt road everything became black and chard except for the top of the trees. Most of the trees seemed to withstand the fire.

I stopped and talked to most of the firefighters that I drove by, most of them reported that they had been working for the past 13 days with 24 hour shifts, 24 on in 24 off. I could gather we are each fire fighter group was from as I drove up on by reading their hometown on the side of their truck. While it seemed like this huge fire covering a space comparable to the far west of San Francisco to the far east of Hayward down to Fremont would be an exclamation point at the end of what is one hell of a fire season. One of the firefighters mentioned to me that actually it is just the beginning of fire season and that they typically expect this to go on for three months from this point on.